Handle

Following a plea by the Georgia governor to help the thousands of state consumers whose natural gas remains cut off for not paying bills, two marketers and a Georgia utility have stepped forward to fulfill the role of provider of last resort (POLR). Gov. Roy Barnes earlier this month asked the state’s Consumers Utility Counsel (CUC) to petition the Public Service Commission (PSC) because nearly 50,000 customers remain without gas after being unable to pay last winter’s unusually high bills.

Everest Energy and Major Pipeline Co. said Wednesday that by the end of this year, they will begin construction on the first phase of the Rimrock Pipeline, a high-pressure natural gas gathering pipeline through portions of Campbell, Johnson and Sheridan counties in Wyoming. The pipe would serve a substantial portion of the Powder River Basin by gathering coalbed methane (CBM) gas on the western side, and transporting it to existing pipes on the eastern side of the basin.

Efforts by FERC to get a handle on how much California is due for possible electricity overcharges by generators are coming under fire from a number of quarters. Public power entities are arguing that the Commission has no right to assert authority over municipals, while several power marketers question why those parties that are potentially on the hook for refunds have never been given the chance to defend themselves and offer evidence as to whether refunds should have been ordered in the first place.

Mitchell Energy & Development Corp., which two weeks agoannounced it was increasing its capital budget nearly $50 millionmore this year, said it has completed two system expansion projectsin North Texas, boosting both natural gas sales and gas liquidsproduction.

Atlanta-based Southern Company Energy Marketing, the energytrading and marketing arm of the nation’s largest producer ofelectricity, agreed in principle to manage the assets ofPan-Alberta Gas Ltd., the second-largest Canadian gas exporter.

J.P. Morgan & Co. will handle the auction of the non-nucleargeneration assets of Connecticut Light and Power Co. (CL&P), awholly owned subsidiary of Northeast Utilities, headquartered inBerlin, CT. The assets to be disposed of consist of 29 powerplants. CL&P’s power purchase agreements will be auctionedseparately in the near future.

Tejas Natural Gas Liquids, LLC, and Marathon Oil Co. areplanning to build a new gas processing plant near Centerville, LA.The $30 million Neptune Gas Processing Plant initially will handle300 MMcf/d of production delivered from deep-water wells in theGulf of Mexico.

For now, Nova Gas Transmission continues to handle about 80%(4.5 Tcf in 1997, or 12.3 Bcf/d) of Canadian gas on its provincialgathering grid because Alberta remains both the biggest producerand center of growth in output. But expectations of serious growthin British Columbia showed clearly when the National Energy Boardvisited the province’s resource development frontier of Fort St.John for regional hearings on the Alliance Pipeline Project