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PanCanadian Petroleum Ltd.’s newest venture, a web page withinits Internet site dedicated to leasing and farming out some of itsundeveloped oil and natural gas rights in Western Canada, launchedthis week with its first Call for Bids centered on four blocks onland that cover 69,000 acres in Alberta.

In its order (CP99-94) approving the downsized project last week, FERCnoted that FGT had amended its plan and cut facilities for the New SmyrnaBeach Lateral that would have served a trailblazing 514 MW merchant powerplant proposed by Duke Energy and approved by the Florida Public ServiceCommission. The PSC’s certification of the power plant was appealed bythe IOUs in a case that currently is lodged in the state Supreme Court.A Duke spokesman said the company was confident its New Smyrna Beach PowerPlant ultimately would be approved, but it has dropped back from FGT’sPhase IV expansion due to go into service in May, 2001 to its Phase V expansiondue in 2002 (see NGI, Dec. 6).

Florida Gas Transmission received the go-ahead for constructionof its Phase IV expansion to serve investor-owned utilities (IOUs)and industrials in Florida, minus capacity that would have servedthe state’s first merchant power plant.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson has called on FERC to design anoffshore policy that encourages private-sector investment in theGulf of Mexico gas infrastructure and the development of advancedproduction technologies. Such a policy would be in keeping with theClinton administration’s 1993 domestic natural gas and oilinitiative, he wrote in a recent letter to Chairman James Hoecker.