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The interim measures proposed by FERC last month to alleviatereliability stresses on the electric transmission grid were a nicefirst try, but the Commission must be delusional if it seriouslythinks they will be of much help this summer, power marketparticipants say.

ONEOK broke ground Friday just north of Oklahoma City on a newnatural gas-run advanced electricity generating plant.The 300 MWplant, which will be owned and operated by ONEOK Power Marketing,will use the latest gas turbine technology to provide electricityfor utilities as well as other purchasers. This marks ONEOK’sfirst venture into the growing natural gas-powered electricitygeneration market. Intended as a “peaking plant,” the facilitywill provide electricity during the summer periods of peak demand.The Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority has already signed acontract to purchase 25% of the plant’s total capacity. ONEOKPresident and Chief Operating Officer David Kyle had this to sayabout ONEOK’s new project, “The natural gas-fueled plant that willbe built here is symbolic of not only a new direction for us, butfor the state as well.” The plant’s site is strategicallypositioned near Oklahoma Gas & Electric’s electric transmissionlines and one of ONEOK’s own natural gas storage facilities. Thegas-burning turbines will be provided by General Electric at anestimated cost of $70 million and will be in operation by thesummer of 2001.

In the midst of a Stage Two emergency alert by the state gridoperator, California generating plants used every cubic foot ofnatural gas they could squeeze through the state’s pipeline systemto keep the air conditioners humming in response to a statewideheat wave throughout the inland valleys and deserts. The secondstage alert, enacted less than two hours after a Stage One had beencalled, required major utilities to seek voluntary curtailmentsamong some of their largest power users.

It’s taken just eight months since its discovery, but MarinerEnergy Inc. says that the Apia Project, a deep-water Gulf of Mexicosingle subsea well, is completed and is producing nearly 40 MMcf/dof natural gas. Located in Garden Banks block 73, the well isproducing at a water depth of 700 feet, connected to a hostplatform approximately three miles away.

Natural gas futures seesawed to either side of unchanged only tofinish just a fraction of a cent higher yesterday as a late roundof fund buying retraced losses stemming from commercial and localselling earlier in the session.

Just when you thought Florida was the place to be this springfor pipeline construction, the ice is melting and activity isstarting to blossom on the Northern frontier -think Alaska andthe Northwest Territories.

Florida just got two steps closer to being flooded by naturalgas via two proposed pipelines. The competing Gulfstream andBuccaneer pipeline projects, which would extend from Mobile, AL,across the Gulf of Mexico to the west coast of Florida and tomarkets across the Florida peninsula, are neck and neck in theirregulatory race after receiving preliminary approvals onnon-environmental grounds from the Federal Energy RegulatoryCommission (FERC) yesterday.

Interest in pipeline capacity auctions is far from dead at theFederal Energy Regulatory Commission. Just ask FERC’s Kevin Madden,who hasn’t given up on them and thinks they have a major role toplay in the natural gas industry.

Just days after winning antitrust clearance from the Departmentof Justice (DOJ), the proposed merger of Philadelphia-based PECOEnergy Co. and Unicom Corp. of Chicago, parent of CommonwealthEdison Co., got more good news last week — it sailed through FERCwithout any conditions attached.