Existing

FERC last week proposed a rulemaking that would update theexisting consensus standards of the Gas Industry Standards Board(GISB) with respect to confirmation practices, standardization ofinformation on pipeline Internet web sites and electronic datasets[RM96-1-011].

Millennium Pipeline yesterday joined a growing crowd of pipelineexpansions and projects that are being delayed until 2000. Thecompany informed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission of therevised project schedule, which calls for some portions of the442-mile pipeline to be constructed in 1999, the balance beingbuilt the following year and service by November 2000. IndependencePipeline, a Millennium competitor, announced a similar delayearlier this year, and Alliance Pipeline said it too was forced toput off transportation services until winter 2000.

NGC Corp. and Texaco signed a memorandum of understandingyesterday to create a new joint venture company that will useexisting gas liquids pipelines to create a 290-mile, bi-directionalnatural gas liquids (NGL) transportation system, extending fromSorrento, LA, to Mont Belvieu, TX.

The majority of existing large electric-related companies willnot be intact a decade from now, says Roger Gale of WashingtonInternational Energy Group. In fact, he anticipates more than halfof the companies will disappear completely.