Expertise

Houston-based Plains Exploration & Production Co. will be adding exploration expertise and properties weighted toward natural gas with its agreement to acquire 3TEC Energy Corp., announced Monday. Plains said it has a definitive agreement to acquire 3TEC for a combination of cash and stock valued at $432 million.

Aquila said it is targeting its energy risk management expertise at the ailing fertilizer industry, which has suffered tremendously over the past two years from volatile natural gas prices. Natural gas can account for up to 80% of a fertilizer product’s costs.

A new dream team of companies formed yesterday has more thanenough market muscle and expertise to succeed where others havefailed in the retail energy market. Enron Corp., IBM and AmericaOnline have launched an ambitious plan to build a major nationalretail energy company with IBM as back office manager, Enron asenergy supplier, and AOL as the key link to the small customermarketplace.

EnergyUSA-TPC, a subsidiary of NiSource, is making good use ofits high deliverability storage expertise, signing on to managesupply for utilities and independent generators while a subsidiaryadds new storage facilities in the Northeast and Mississippi.

El Paso Merchant Power has found a way to leverage itsregulatory expertise into a whole new business, buying up gas-firedcogeneration facilities across the country – and the power supplycontracts that go with them – to create “the lowest cost merchantpower plant portfolio being assembled in the industry.”

Foothills Pipe Lines Ltd. has joined as a sponsor of the AlaskaNorth Slope Gas Project, adding its pipeline expertise to the mixwhich includes producers and a marketer behind the multi-billiondollar project to carry North Slope gas to the Alaskan coast,liquefy it and ship the LNG to Pacific Rim markets.