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Northern Indiana Public Service Co. (NIPSCO) named BarrettHatches president and CEO. Hatches, who will join NIPSCO April 2,will oversee all natural gas and electric distribution operationsof the utility serving more than 700,000 natural gas customers and430,000 electric customers across the northern third of Indiana.Hatches also will serve as CEO of NiSource’s other Indiana naturalgas distribution companies, Northern Indiana Fuel and Light, andKokomo Gas and Fuel. Hatches, 45, currently is president and CEO ofAlaska-based ENSTAR Natural Gas, a gas distribution subsidiary ofSEMCO ENERGY.

BP, Phillips Alaska and ExxonMobil announced yesterday they haveagreed to a “joint work program” to study the feasibility ofbuilding a pipeline to deliver Alaska North Slope gas to markets inthe Lower 48 states and Canada. But they’re the first to cautionthat their action is no guarantee that the on-again, off-againAlaska pipeline project will move forward this time.

Public power utilities are jumping into the B2B act too — morethan 225 community-owned electric utilities have committed up to$1.2 billion in purchasing power to UtilityFrontier.com, a nationalexchange launched earlier this year. The utilities will use the B2Bas a purchasing exchange to serve more than 6.7 million electricmeters — about one third of all public power customers.

Baker Hughes and Schlumberger plan to create a new seismic venture called Western GECO that would combine and own the seismic acquisition assets, data processing assets, and multi-client seismic libraries and other assets of their existing subsidiaries Western Geophysical and GECO-Prakla. The transaction is expected to be completed before the end of the year and is subject to regulatory approvals.

Florida-based FPL Group Inc., the largest power company in oneof the fastest growing states, has agreed to buy New Orleans-basedEntergy Corp. for $13.9 billion in stock and assumed debt to formthe largest utility in the United States. When the deal is done,the new company will serve 6.3 million customers and have acombined generating capacity of more than 48,000 MW.

In a deal that is being called the biggest in the Canadianenergy industry this year, two Calgary companies, Husky Oil Ltd.and Renaissance Energy Ltd., agreed last week to merge into HuskyEnergy, a move that will catapult the new company into the top tierof Canada’s publicly traded energy firms.

In a deal that is being called the biggest in the Canadianenergy industry this year, two Calgary companies, Husky Oil Ltd.and Renaissance Energy Ltd., agreed Monday to merge into HuskyEnergy, a move that will catapult the new company into the top tierof Canada’s publicly traded energy firms.

CMS Energy Corp., is pushing ahead with plans to convert part ofCMS Trunkline’s mainline from gas to liquids service. Last week thecompany was joined in the project by Marathon Ashland PetroleumLLC, and TEPPCO Partners LP.

In a move that brings together two of the energy industry’s800-pound gorillas, Texaco and Enron North America announced lastweek they are combining their Louisiana pipeline and storage assetsin a new joint venture called Bridgeline Holdings LP.