Efforts

Cash prices gave their best efforts Tuesday at imitating theprevious day’s screen rise of slightly over 35 cents, and quite afew points came close. But when the initially firmer July futurescontract made an abrupt about-face at mid-morning Tuesday andheaded south to eventually wind up the day more than a dime lower,cash numbers dutifully followed the screen’s lead once again inlate trading.

Alleging the law that created the framework for a deregulatedelectric market in Nevada will be detrimental and unfair to theirstockholders and their customers, Nevada Power and Sierra PacificPower filed in federal court last week to have the law declaredunconstitutional.

Continuing with efforts to shed non-core assets and improve itsbalance sheet, CMS Energy Corp. announced an agreement yesterday tosell its 80% ownership of the 236 MW Lakewood Cogeneration ventureto Consolidated Edison for $94 million. The sale will result in a$182 million reduction of project debt from the CMS balance sheet.

TriState Pipeline notified FERC earlier this week that it willnot pursue further application efforts to build its proposed 650MMcf/d pipeline between Chicago, IL, and Dawn, ON. The notificationletter put an end to a troubled project that had once hoped todirectly compete with the Vector Pipeline.

Three West Coast states are coordinating their efforts with theFederal Trade Commission to resolve the antitrust problemsassociated with BP-Amoco’s acquisition of Atlantic Richfield. Inthe event the issues can’t be worked out, the states said they willbring a lawsuit to block the $26 billion marriage.

PG&E Gas Transmission-Northwest reported completing hydrotesting of its A-Line ahead of schedule. The project’s end restoredcapacity to best-efforts levels of 2,620 MMcf/d at Kingsgate and1,930 MMcf/d at Station 14 Friday.

Political forces are prevailing over economics in California’songoing efforts to finish the job of unbundling its natural gas andelectricity industries, and no one in the newly elected Gov. GrayDavis’s administration so far is getting involved, according toenergy industry observers in the state capital in Sacramento. As aresult, three months into 1999, the five-member California PublicUtilities Commission is operating with two vacant seats, stillawaiting gubernatorial appointments.

After two brief rally efforts failed to produce higher prices,the futures market again came under selling pressure as moreprominent bearish fundamentals more than offset below-normal marketarea temperatures. And in a rare occurrence, the 4.1-cent loss seenin the prompt March contract was outpaced by more substantiallosses in the April, May, June and July contracts.

Columbia Energy took a hit Wednesday as the Michigan AttorneyGeneral stepped in to halt one of Columbia’s marketing efforts. Dueto an objection by the Attorney General over the wording in a mailsolicitation sent to Michcon pilot program customers, Columbia hasconsented to end the solicitation and offer any customer it hassigned to an out. Currently, Columbia has signed 12,200 customersaway from Michcon.