Eyes

As the dot.com stocks begin to lose a “little bit of theirluster,” Wall Street investors quickly are setting their sights oncompanies that are involved in the development of fuel-celltechnology for the energy market, as well as the individualutilities that are “embracing” the new technology.

As state regulators and utilities gear up for the advent ofdistributed generation, one of California’s native sons and thefirst company in the nation to market commercial distributed powergeneration systems for businesses, Capstone Turbine Corp., ispreparing for its own $115 million IPO later this spring.

As state regulators and utilities gear up for the advent ofdistributed generation, one of California’s native sons and thefirst company in the nation to market commercial distributed powergeneration systems for businesses, Capstone Turbine Corp., ispreparing for its own $115 million IPO later this spring.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) is conducting asurvey of local distribution companies (LDCs) in four northeasternstates to determine the extent that interruptible natural gascontracts influenced home heating oil prices this winter.

With the ink barely dry on the FERC order approving part of thephase-two expansion of its storage caverns in Mississippi, PetalGas Storage L.L.C. last week kicked off an open season to determinewhether there’s a demand for another expansion.

Less than a week after FERC approved part of its phase-twoexpansion of its storage caverns in Mississippi, Petal Gas StorageLLC has kicked off an open season to determine whether there’s ademand for another expansion.

Coastal’s ANR Pipeline Co. said yesterday that its proposedexpansion, the Wisconsin 2000 project, received a favorableenvironmental assessment from the FERC staff. Joe Martucci, aspokesman for the company said the project is on track and expectsfinal FERC approval early in 2000.

All eyes were on the electric utility industry yesterday as itreadied for the first industry-wide test of the preparedness of itscomputer systems for the transition to the year 2000. At the sametime, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson announced that eight majorelectric utilities still were either not Y2K ready or Y2K readywith limited exceptions. Also 16 municipal utilities and ruralcooperatives have yet to report on their Y2K progress to theAmerican Public Power Association and the National Rural ElectricCooperative Association.

With its deal to acquire Poco Petroleums for $2.5 billion, Burlington Resources could be leading a charge of U.S. E&P companies heading to Canada for relatively cheap gas assets at a time when Canada is expected to play a large role in meeting strong gas demand growth.