England

Three independent system operators — ISO New England, The NewYork ISO, and PJM Interconnection — which have been workingtogether to improve power supply reliability, recently addedanother ISO to their cooperation pact.

Three independent system operators — ISO New England, The NewYork ISO, and PJM Interconnection — which have been workingtogether to improve power supply reliability, recently addedanother ISO to their cooperation pact.

Gas will start flowing today from Nova Scotia to New Englandthrough the new Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline after theNational Energy Board (NEB) conditionally OK’d the start ofCanadian operations late yesterday. Meanwhile, consultationscontinue between Maritimes management and the Union of Nova ScotiaIndians (UNSI), which had sought to block the project.

Western-based El Paso Energy, which lassoed Tennessee Gas Pipeline and a route to New England three years ago, rode into the Southeast last week, announcing it will acquire Sonat and its Southern Natural Gas Pipeline in a $6 billion deal.

San Francisco-based PG&E Corp. leap-frogged the continent tocomplete the $1.59 billion acquisition of New England ElectricSystem’s generating business, including hydro and gas-fired plantswith 5,100 MW of capacity. The acquisition was made by PG&Esubsidiary U.S. Generating Co.

The recent price spikes and generation outages in the Midwestpower market have opened the door wide for the natural gas industryto capture a greater share of the industrial energy market, says asenior economist.

GFI Energy Ventures of Los Angeles, Caminus Energy Ltd. ofCambridge, England, SS&C Technologies, Oaktree CapitalManagement and RIT Capital partners plc are combining forces toform GFI Caminus, a new enterprise that will provide comprehensiveconsulting services and software technology to the power and gastrading industry.

The dueling U.S. titans were continuing their battle to be thenew owner of England’s The Energy Group. Texas Utilities said itacquired 36.9 million more Energy Group shares at 840 pence/share,representing about 7.1% of The Energy Group’s issued share capital,and now holds 114.4 million shares, about 21.96% of issued sharecapital. TU had the blessing of U.S. regulators for the shareacquisition.