East

A unit of Enron and the heavily industrialized East SanFrancisco Bay area suburb of Pittsburg, CA, are teaming up with aninternational steel mill to pursue a $250 million, 500-megawattnatural gas-fired merchant power plant. By mid-May, Pittsburg’scity council will decide whether the city should take an interestin the privately financed proposal.

The coming Foothills/Northern Border expansion will impact gasprices and gas flows in several ways, according to a new report byPIRA Energy Group. Foothills/Northern Border will carry 700 MMcf/dfrom Alberta to the Midwest. Completion is expected Nov. 1.

Cold weather helped many Western points avoid the prices dropsin the East that generally ranged from a nickel to 15 centsTuesday. It was snowing Monday and Tuesday in the Salt Lake Cityarea and that is expected to continue today, a trader told DailyGPI. Only the Southwest basins and Waha were left out of the West’sfirmness, likely because they were getting no demand support at allfrom intrastate Texas and Midwest markets, sources said.

Prices ranged from flat to down a few cents Wednesday, with mostof the softness concentrated in the Gulf Coast, Midcontinent andChicago citygates. Columbia-Appalachia joined those points indeclines of mostly 3-6 cents, but CNG and Northeast citygates weredown only a penny or two. The declines tended to be attributed to”tracking the Nymex,” as a marketer said.