Fund

The Department of Energy (DOE) announced it will fund aBillings, MT, company’s proposal to further refine and test acoal-based filtering product that could remove the impurities inthe water produced by stripper gas wells, thereby greatly reducingwaste-water disposal costs for producers and royalty owners. In theend, the DOE believes the product has the potential tosignificantly prolong the life of the thousands of stripper gaswells in the United States.

EnerMark Income Fund of Calgary offered to acquire all shares ofWestern Star Exploration Ltd. by way of a take-over bid. WesternStar assets are mainly producing gas properties concentrated in theHanna, Taber and Thornbury areas of Alberta. EnerMark’s estimate ofWestern Star’s proven reserves total 36,855 MMcf of gas and 147MBoe of crude oil and gas liquids. These reserve volumes includethe results of a successful 21-well gas development program atHanna Garden.

The Gas Research Institute has offered a proposed budget of $98million for approval by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission tofund research and development projects for 2000. The funding wouldcover $72.6 million for 43 Core projects, widely beneficial to theentire industry and gas users and $25.4 million for 22 Non-Coreprojects targeted to specific activities and major market segments.In addition to the FERC-directed portion of the budget, GRIanticipates receiving about $53 million in cofunding from industryand govenrment sources in 2000. The filing Tuesday marked the thirdyear of the seven-year transition to an all-voluntary R&Dprogram. In 2001 the funding through FERC will drop to $70 million,then $60 million in 2002-2004. At the end of that period thefunding will be voluntary.

Enron Capital & Trade Resources Corp. (ECT), SyntroleumCorp., and SLH Corp. contributed a total of $3 million to funddetailed engineering, land purchase and other development costs foran 8,000 barrel/d gas-to-liquids specialty product plant inSweetwater County, WY, to be developed by Syntroleum. Subject toconditions, ECT committed an additional $14.5 million for aminority interest in the plant.