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Enron Americas LNG Co. has withdrawn its protest alleging that Southern LNG Inc. showed preferential treatment when it awarded the entire capacity of its facility on Elba Island in Georgia, which it is seeking to reactivate, to its marketing affiliate. Since filing the protest in August, the two companies “have negotiated a commercial resolution regarding the future use of the Elba Island Terminal.” Enron LNG said it now supports Southern LNG’s bid for a preliminary determination by Dec. 31 and final approval in the first quarter of 2000 to upgrade and reactivate the mothballed terminalling facility. (See Daily GPI, Aug. 19).

One year after opening its entire Ohio territory to retail gassupplier competition, Columbia Gas of Ohio said nearly 500,000customers, or about one-third of those eligible, are buying gasfrom marketers rather than the utility. Columbia serves 1.3 millioncustomers in the state.

One year after opening its entire Ohio territory to retail gassupplier competition, Columbia Gas of Ohio said nearly 500,000customers, or about one-third of those eligible, are buying gasfrom marketers rather than the utility. Columbia serves 1.3 millioncustomers in the state.

Eastern Enterprises stock price jumped more than 13% last weekto more than $44/share on news it is evaluating strategicalternatives that could include share repurchases, joint venturesor a sale of all or part of the company.

Sea Robin told shippers Tuesday it must shut in the entiresystem for 10-12 hours today and asked them to cut their nominationlevels by 50%. The action resulted from being informed by Texaco,operator of the Sea Robin Processing Plant, that the plant musthalt operation to repair a leak. The event constitutes a forcemajeure, Sea Robin said, and thus it declared an OFO Type 30 forthe shutdown period. The pipeline said it had contacted downstreamdelivery point operators and they could not accept gas untreated bythe plant’s dehydration facility.

While reporting increased earnings overall for both its utilityand unregulated businesses, PG&E Corp.’s first quarter resultsreleased yesterday (May 17) continue to show red ink for its Texasnatural gas operations, trading and energy services businesses.Results were net earnings of 42 cents-per-share, or 37 cents fullydiluted, compared to 36 cents-per-share for the first quarter of1998. Overall, the utility contributed all but three cents to theearnings, compared to 1998 first quarter when it provided 100percent of the earnings.

The trend among the top energy marketers appears to be that thebig movers continue getting much bigger while the smaller marketersare struggling to maintain previous sales volumes andprofitability, according to NGI’s marketing survey. The survey alsoindicates volume growth has very little correlation with financialperformance.

The futures market gave the impression it would finish the weekon a boring note, and for nearly the entire abbreviated tradingsession last Thursday it did just that-trading within a tighttwo-cent range. But that was before bears gave the market a littlepre-Christmas surprise by selling the market into the final bell.The prompt January contract finished 2.5 cents lower at $1.881.Estimated volume was a paltry 24,112 contracts.

Diversity of supply sources, a pipeline infrastructure thatblankets nearly the entire state of Florida and strong customerties will give Florida Gas Transmission (FGT) the edge overcompeting pipelines-such as Williams-Transco’s proposed BuccaneerPipeline-that are planning projects into the state in an attempt tocapture a portion of the growing power generation market there,says FGT President Rockford G. Meyer.