Days

Enron’s days as an electric utility are coming to an end. Afteronly two years of owning Oregon-based Portland General Electric(PGE), Enron has decided to part with the company for a small gainthrough a sale to fellow western utility Sierra Pacific Resources.

Northern Natural said the 89 Mitchell CO2 outlet will be out forgas days Nov. 30 through Dec. 1 for planned pipeline maintenanceaffecting 80,000 MMBtu/d. Mitchell plant volumes will be at zeroduring the period.

A “comfort zone” was one trader’s description of the relativelyflat cash market over the last few days. And why not? After asummer chuck full of record setting temperatures and hurricanehype, supply and demand appear to have reached some semblance ofequilibrium. Many sellers saw their best prices early yesterdaybefore the market slipped lower in lackluster late morningdealings.

In its second major energy services move in the past five days,CMS Marketing, Services and Trading, (CMS-MST) announced afive-year energy management agreement with Chicago-based Bank OneCorp., the nation’s fifth largest bank holding company. Neither thefinancial terms of the deal, nor Bank One’s energy output weredisclosed.

After prices nose-dived during September’s first three days oftrading, a number of traders thought they would never get back toindex levels during the month. Then after steady increases in theweek after Labor Day put quite a few points around or near indexesagain, there were those who said prices were likely to weaken butcertainly wouldn’t plunge to those early-September depths again.

How quickly the market can change! Just two days after finishinga bidweek that saw indexes climb 30 cents or more, traders tookcash prices down Thursday to levels looking much more like Augustindexes than those of September. It was a rare point that managedto avoid a double-digit decline, and some registered drops of 20cents or more.

After a volatile three days of seller-dominated trading Tuesday,Wednesday and Thursday last week, the futures market was quietFriday as light pre-weekend short covering was almost perfectlymatched by follow-through selling. The August contract could manageonly a 4.5-cent trading range before finishing 0.1 cents higher forthe day at $2.163. Estimated volume was relatively modest, with55,158 contracts changing hands.

KN Energy has discovered there is more than just cheddar cheeseproduction going on in Wisconsin these days. Potential customersfrom “all segments of the industry” showed interest in its proposedHorizon Pipeline project and have signed preliminary agreements for800 MMcf/d of firm capacity, the company said yesterday.

CMS Panhandle Eastern plans its Waverly Piping Inspection tobegin Friday and last seven days, reducing capacity by 60 MMcf/d.The project reduces capacity on Panhandle’s 100 line between Havenand Glenarm but will affect only physical receipts between Havenand Glenarm into the 100 lines.