Found

Columbia Energy took a hit Wednesday as the Michigan AttorneyGeneral stepped in to halt one of Columbia’s marketing efforts. Dueto an objection by the Attorney General over the wording in a mailsolicitation sent to Michcon pilot program customers, Columbia hasconsented to end the solicitation and offer any customer it hassigned to an out. Currently, Columbia has signed 12,200 customersaway from Michcon.

As bidweek approached the home stretch Thursday, traders foundfixed prices mostly a little higher than they had been Wednesdaybut still considerably below where they had been at the start ofthe week Monday. A marketer whose earliest purchases into PanhandleEastern were in the mid $2.00s said the numbers rebounded to$1.93-94 Thursday after having dipped to just under $1.90Wednesday.

A staff team of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said itfound no “direct evidence” that market manipulation contributed tothe spike in electricity prices in the Midwest market last June,but it did uncover some questionable practices. Moreover, itconcluded that the pricing turmoil was a rare event that wouldn’tlikely occur again.

El Paso Natural Gas has asked FERC to overturn a July ALJinitial decision that found it failed to “seriously confront thepotential impact of…turned-back capacity on the remainingcustomers on its system and take adequate steps to remarket thecapacity” when it first learned that Southern California Gas (SoCalGas) planned to step down its capacity commitment effective January1996. If upheld by the Commission, El Paso would be required toshoulder the costs for half of the 300 MMcf/d of capacity that theLDC turned back.

Monday’s cash trading found support from record hightemperatures in the South and El Paso’s Blanco compressor stationoutage but were kept in check by softening futures prices. Mostspot market points managed modest gains of about 3-5 cents.Southwestern and Rockies points, however, logged gains of nearly adime.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has found some missingelements in the draft environmental impact statement (DEIS)prepared by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on theAlliance Pipeline project which is in competition with Voyaguer tocarry western Canadian supplies to the Chicago area.