Firm

Houston-based Michael Petroleum Corp. said it invested $1.5million in a venture to participate in the drilling of 38 naturalgas wells for Pemex in the Burgos Basin in Northern Mexico. MichaelFarmar, Michael Petroleum president, said the project has drillednine gas wells to date and anticipates drilling the remaining 29wells before Dec. 31, 1999.

CMS Energy Corp. added to its retail energy marketing businessMonday by purchasing the western Pennsylvania natural gas marketingassets of Enerval, L.L.C., an energy marketing firm with more than250 commercial and industrial customers in that region. Enerval isan indirect subsidiary of Conectiv, the holding company formed inMarch 1998 through the merger of Atlantic City Electric andDelmarva Power and Light. Terms of the purchase were not disclosed.

Coral Energy became the principal gas supplier to LDCMountaineer Gas Co. through an agreement giving Coral management ofvirtually all of Mountaineer’s total firm transportation andstorage entitlements. Effective Nov. 1, Coral will begin supplyingMountaineer, West Virginia’s largest LDC, about 25 Bcf/year forthree years. Gas will be supplied at a fixed price. Local gassupplies are not part of the deal and will continue to be managedby Mountaineer.

Nation Fuel Gas Supply Corp. is holding an open season for19,100 Dth/d of long-term firm transportation capacity that hasbeen turned backed to its system. The open season will terminate onSept. 11.

Williams has announced an open season running now through Aug.24 to sign up firm shippers for expansion of its Transco pipelinesystem running northeast from Station 85 across Alabama and Georgiato mainline delivery points in Zone 4 and ending just north ofAtlanta, GA.

Last week’s trading wound up wound up with a reversal ofregional price trends. Whereas in the first couple of days of theweek Western points were recording gains while the stagnant Easternmarket was mostly flat to a little lower, the West was falling hardFriday but the East was flat to 2-3 cents higher. The Easternfirmness came as a surprise to some traders who had expected mildweather and the usual slump in weekend load to yield modest pricedeclines.

Confident parent companies Enova and Pacific Enterprises are inthe home stretch for final merger approval by the Securities andExchange Commission, Sempra Energy announced a deal with a nationaltelecommunications marketer, The Furst Group, Inc., that shows it’srapidly expanding in the nonregulated energy and communicationsservices arena.

Cumberland Gas Pipeline Co., a general partnership of Williamsand AGL resources subsidiaries, is holding an open season for firmcapacity that started Monday and runs to May 29. The 141-mileCumberland Pipeline will initially consist of existing pipelineinfrastructure created by combining the 27-mile Suwanee lateral onWilliams’ Transco pipeline and Atlanta Gas Light’s 102-milemainline. The pipeline will run from the Transco mainline in WaltonCounty, GA, to Atlanta Gas Light’s interconnect with East TennesseeNatural Gas Co. in Catoosa County, GA. New facilities are expectedto be expanded north into Tennessee.