Freeze

What may be bullish traders’ last weather hope in an otherwise disappointingly mild winter was developing Monday, but the price reaction was somewhat subdued. Most eastern points ranged from flat to slightly more than a nickel higher, while western gains tended to be larger at about a nickel to nearly 15 cents. The stronger performance in the West was largely attributed to recovery from weekend softening, the absence of high-linepack OFOs in California and demand in the Midwest for more Rockies supplies.

The California Public Utilities Commission Thursday decided totemporarily mandate that large electricity customers who have optedfor price breaks by voluntarily agreeing to be curtailed duringextreme peak-demand periods remain on their interruptible scheduleat least through March 31, 2001. The regulators took the action tocoincide with a statewide effort now underway to beef up thecurtailment program before next summer to have more voluntarycurtailed load in place if needed to avoid rolling blackouts duringpeak-demand times.

A winter storm sweeping through the South, along with freezingtemperatures expected to last through the weekend in much of theU.S. from the Rockies eastward, resulted in rising prices at nearlyall points Friday.

Columbia Gas of Ohio and the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio(PUCO) announced a renewed rate freeze last week that Columbia saidwill pave the way for its popular customer choice program tocontinue until 2004. The agreement, which the company said modifiedand extended a five-year deal struck in 1994, was negotiated byColumbia, the Ohio Consumer’s Counsel (OCC), natural gas marketersand a coalition of Columbia customer groups.

Columbia Gas of Ohio and the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio(PUCO) announced a renewed rate freeze yesterday that Columbia saidwill pave the way for its popular customer choice program tocontinue until 2004. The agreement, which the company said modifiedand extended a five-year deal struck in 1994, was negotiated byColumbia, the Ohio Consumer’s Counsel (OCC), natural gas marketersand a coalition of Columbia customer groups.

With the advent of ending its electricity rate freeze thissummer and moving to a more volatile pricing environment, San DiegoGas and Electric Co. was given a new incentive rate mechanism todetermine its future utility revenue needs by California regulatorslast week. Current rates will not change because of the new”performance-based ratemaking” (PBR) system, but the system will beused the next time the regulators review SDG&E’s performance.