Done

NiSource Inc. and Columbia Energy Group formally complete theirmerger today, after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissiongave it final approval this week. The combined company, which willserve 3.6 million gas and electric customers in nine states, willtrade as NiSource on the New York Stock Exchange. Columbia’s shareswill cease trading before the market opens Thursday.

Regional Reliability Councils and their members are about 90%compliant, but work still needs to be done to bring standards upand encourage non-members to join, according to the latest reportfrom the North American Electricity Reliability Council. NERC haspublished its findings for the second of four phases of its Year2000 Compliance Program, created to ensure adherence to NERC andregional standards.

NiSource Inc. and Columbia Energy Group formally completed their merger last week, after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission gave it final approval. The combined company, which will serve 3.6 million gas and electric customers in nine states, will trade as NiSource on the New York Stock Exchange. Columbia’s shares ceased trading before the market opened last Thursday.

After putting its 50% interest of the Express System crude oil pipeline on the market last December as part of CEO Doug Baldwin’s $3 billion divestiture program, TransCanada PipeLines Ltd. (TCPL) finally found a buyer in Alberta Energy Company Ltd. (AEC) for a net total of $60 million. Included in the sale is TransCanada’s 50% interest in Marquest marketing entities which act as shippers on the system.

Phillips Petroleum announced last week that it has done somecoal-bed methane shopping recently. Phillips acquired River GasCorp., a privately held coal-bed methane producer, as well ascoal-bed methane positions of three other companies located in thePowder River Basin of Wyoming. The cost of the four transactionswas $123 million in cash.

Phillips Petroleum announced yesterday that it has done somecoal-bed methane shopping recently. Phillips acquired River GasCorp., a privately held coal-bed methane producer, as well ascoal-bed methane positions of three other companies located in thePowder River Basin of Wyoming. The cost of the four transactionsfor was $123 million in cash.

A new study of seven cities done by the Interstate Natural GasAssociation of America (INGAA) Foundation found that Chicago, andAustin, TX, reflected “desirable attributes of a metropolitan area”that could likely benefit from a high deployment of distributedgeneration.

Sonat said it will try to complete valve maintenance set for todaywithout affecting production. However, if that can’t be done,production may be shut in for up to six hours at the MississippiCanyon 194, Mississippi Canyon 109, Mississippi Canyon 20 and RomerePass points. Reliant said Thursday it had lifted an operational alertlimiting capacity in the West of Amber segment in Oklahoma (see DailyGPI, March 29).

Natural gas marketers on average have done a poor job ofsatisfying their customers this year, according to a biennialreport issued by Mastio & Co. last week. Thirty-six out of 77marketers got unsatisfactory report cards from their customers inthis area compared to 1997, it said, while only 16 marketers showedimprovement.