Federal

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has conditionallyapproved a new interruptible park and loan service (PLS) to starttoday on Williams Gas Pipelines Central. The service – allowingcustomers to park or request a loan of gas at each of Williams’pools – was designed to give those customers greater flexibility ina market that has evolved from a monthly to a daily business. FERCapproved the service subject to refund and certain conditions.

Sempra Energy International was awarded a 10-year agreement byMexico’s Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) to supply gas to thePresidente Juarez power plant in Rosarito, Baja California. Semprawill provide a complete energy supply package to the plant,including delivery of up to 300 MMcf/d of gas, transportationservices in the United States and construction of a 23-milepipeline from the U.S.-Mexico boarder to the plant. The value ofthe 10-year gas supply contract could approach $1 billion incurrent dollars.

Burned so badly that it subsequently got out of the gas andelectric marketing business, LG&E Energy nevertheless has urgedthe Federal Energy Regulatory Commission not to interfere with theinfant electric market by imposing price caps. The marketer, whichhad been among the largest in the business, said the price run-upin June to the neighborhood of $7,000 per MWh for gas deliveredinto Cinergy was part of the “growing pains” of an immaturecommodities market.

Western Resources and Kansas City Power & Light filed anamended application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commissionto approve the Western Resources-KCPL merger and the formation ofWestar Energy, a new electric company.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued an order lateFriday authorizing the California ISO on an interim basis to”reject bids in excess of whatever price levels it believes areappropriate for Regulation, Spinning Reserve, Non-Spinning Reserveand Replacement Reserve. The price levels could be based on costs,market or any factor the ISO determines will attract sufficientbids into the markets.”

As of last Friday, 35 days away from the Federal EnergyRegulatory Commission’s August recess and counting….there wasstill no official sign of its promised plan to cure the gas marketof its ills. But rumors abounded that the alleged “gas options”paper has been circulated to pipelines and producers and isundergoing a variety of alterations. There also was one report thatthe plan might not, after all, see daylight until after the recess.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has succeeded incontriving an order (No. 587-G) that the natural gas industryalmost universally opposes, which is not that rare. What is rare,however, is the unanimity among pipelines, distributors, producersand end users on what is wrong with the Commission’s mandate thatall pipeline transactions be conducted over the Internet byelectronic data interchange (EDI) by June 1, 1999.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s authority formandatory pipeline bypass of a distribution company is up for grabsagain as a result of an Eleventh Circuit court decision lastThursday in the long-running Arcadian case (Atlanta Gas Light et alv. FERC 92-9121).

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission yesterday issued anotice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) in which it seeks industrycomments on how to create an efficient electronic informationsystem for processing and distributing filings.