Giving

Southern Energy agreed yesterday to purchase four PotomacElectric Power Co. (Pepco) power plants for $2.65 billion, givingthe power generator an additional 5,889 MW of capacity, and directaccess to the mid-Atlantic states market.

An alliance with Canadian producer Canadian 88 Energy Corp. isgiving Duke Energy a greater presence in Canada and access to 100MMcf/d of gas production. Duke also will be optimizing Canadian 88gathering lines and about a dozen processing plants. Initially,Duke will be marketing about 100 MMcf/d of Canadian 88 production.

After giving Natural Gas Pipeline Co. of America (NGPL) asecond bite at the apple, FERC last week said the pipeline hadsufficiently defended a proposed tariff revision that would allowit to hold its shippers liable for damages resulting fromlower-quality gas entering its system.

As cooling temperatures were giving heat ravaged areas from theUpper Midwest to the Southeast much needed relief, the natural gasfutures market was doing its own cooling off early yesterday asprices dipped to the lowest level since July 23. The move lower wasshort-lived and after opening at $2.50 the August contract wasunable to attract follow-though selling, leaving buyers to bid themarket higher throughout the rest of the day. The prompt monthfinished up 3.2 cents at $2.575.

While FERC’s recent decision to call a technical conference onTriState Pipeline “obviously was not advantageous for us,” leadsponsor CMS Gas Transmission and Storage isn’t ready “at thispoint” to throw in the towel on the project, a company spokesmansaid.

While FERC’s decision last week to call a technical conferenceon TriState Pipeline “obviously was not advantageous for us,” leadsponsor CMS Gas Transmission and Storage isn’t ready “at thispoint” to throw in the towel on the project, a company spokesmansaid.

The controversial Northeast-bound Independence Pipeline andMillennium Pipeline have won draft environmental acceptance at theFederal Energy Regulatory Commission, giving both the first bit ofencouraging news since the project applications were first filed.But the projects may not turn out as originally designed.

Cash prices staged a broad-based retreat Monday, giving up 3-5cents at most Eastern points with Western declines tending to belarger at a nickel or more. The market lost some of last week’sfundamental support as a warming trend started to develop in theWest, sources said. In addition, although the Henry Hub futurescontract for May later reversed field and achieved an overall gainfor the day, its weakness in the morning rubbed off on cashtrading.

FERC yesterday denied Midcoast Interstate Transmission Inc.’srequest for a limited stay of the orders giving Southern NaturalGas (Sonat) the go-ahead to build an extension of its mainline intonorthern Alabama.