Crosses

A story that ran in Monday’s edition of Daily GPI contained two errors. In the story titled “El Paso Crosses Hurdle But Still Faces Tough Battle Ahead,” a date of May 20 was given for El Paso’s annual meeting, where a proxy battle is scheduled to take place for control of El Paso’s board of directors (see Daily GPI, March 17). El Paso said no date has been set. The story also contained a typo. The name of El Paso’s fomer CEO, William Wise, was misspelled. NGI regrets these errors.

The proxy battle that began Tuesday for control of El Paso’s board is unlikely to be forestalled by the actions last week of El Paso’s directors, according to analysts. El Paso CEO Williams Wise stepped down despite earlier plans to retire at the end of the year and the company named director Ronald Kuehn, a former Sonat executive, as its new CEO.

The proxy battle that began Tuesday for control of El Paso’s board is unlikely to be forestalled by the actions last week of El Paso’s directors, according to analysts. El Paso CEO Williams Wise stepped down despite earlier plans to retire at the end of the year and the company named director Ronald Kuehn, a former Sonat executive, as its new CEO.

Horizon Pipeline, a joint venture of Nicor Inc. and Kinder Morgan’s Natural Gas Pipeline Company of America (NGPL) three years in the making, has begun delivering gas in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin, ahead of rival project Guardian Pipeline. Gas began flowing through the $80 million Horizon line May 11 following final approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) (see NGI, May 13).

TradeSpark has proven it is not being left behind in the energy e-commerce battle with EnronOnline and IntercontinentalExchange (ICE). The electronic trading company reported that its energy trading marketplace, which is powered by eSpeed technology, has transacted $100 billion (notional value) in energy products since its launch in October 2000. The phenomenal growth is similar to that seen by EnronOnline in its first year of trading in 2000.

TradeSpark has proven it is not being left behind in the energy e-commerce battle with EnronOnline and IntercontinentalExchange (ICE). TradeSpark reported that its energy trading marketplace, which is powered by eSpeed technology, has transacted $100 billion (notional value) in energy products since its launch in October 2000. The phenomenal growth is similar to that seen by EnronOnline in its first year of trading in 2000.

If El Paso continues on its current path, there may be nopipelines left to buy. After announcing an agreement to merge withCoastal Corp. only a week earlier, the Houston-based energy giantannounced two more major purchases last week.

November Henry Hub futures burst through the 40-day movingaverage at the open yesterday and never really looked back. Aftercrossing $2.859, speculative fund buyers jumped in, sending thecontract 10.2 cents higher for the day to $2.927/MMBtu. Decembergained 10.7 cents, settling at $3.120. January jumped 9.9 cents to$3.130, and February moved up 7.2 cents to $2.945.

Like a grizzly bear accidentally stepping on a porcupine, VikingVoyageur seems to have tread on a Wisconsin landowner whose husbandhappens to be a Noble Prize winning economist with a dislike ofpipeline infrastructure. In testimony filed at FERC on behalf ofhis wife Katherine D. Miller, Merton H. Miller, McCormickDistinguished Service Professor of Finance, Emeritus, of theGraduate School of Business, University of Chicago, warned theCommission if its goal in approving new pipelines is to benefitconsumers then it should toss the Voyageur project.