Kicked

Almost a month and a half after being kicked out of Columbia Gas of Ohio’s Customer Choice program for failure to deliver gas to its customers in August, Ohio marketer Energy Max has found itself at the epicenter of a complaint lodged by the Ohio Consumers Council (OCC) in the interests of the marketer’s customers.

Prices slumped Friday as the usual weekend lull in gas demandkicked in, and little severe heat was expected outside the southerntier of states. Western markets tended to see more of the largerdecreases, while a few eastern points managed to hang in there atflat leveles.

Less than a week after FERC approved part of its phase-twoexpansion of its storage caverns in Mississippi, Petal Gas StorageLLC has kicked off an open season to determine whether there’s ademand for another expansion.

After piercing key resistance at $2.78 shortly before noon(EST), natural gas futures kicked into overdrive yesterday astraders discounted warm weather forecasts and added to their longpositions.

Vector Pipeline management was all smiles last week asconstruction on the pipeline kicked into high gear and one of itsmain competitors, CMS Gas Transmission & Storage Co.’s TriStatePipeline, halted efforts to pursue its application forconstruction. While TriState foundered, the Vector project, whichwould make 1 Bcf/d of transport available from western Canada toChicago, is on schedule to start service in October.

The first major construction activity kicked off this week forVector Pipeline, the project partners announced yesterday. Theproject, which would make 1 Bcf/d of transport available fromwestern Canada to Chicago, is on time to start service in October.

Wisconsin Energy Corp., a Milwaukee, WI-based utility holdingcompany, kicked off the merger merry-go-round last week when itannounced plans to acquire WICOR Inc., the parent of a rival gasdistributor, for about $1.51 billion in cash, stock and debt,creating a major Midwest energy concern and the 13th largestutility in the nation.

For the second Monday in a row the futures market kicked off theweek with a lower open, which featured bears as the earlyaggressors. That, however, is where the similarities between thetwo weeks ended. Whereas prices continued down the slippery slopelast Monday, yesterday’s trend was almost a straight line higher.Sources said a number of factors-technical short-covering,supportive weather forecasts and even a boost from the nearby crudeoil trading pit-were reasons for the 7-cent gain to $1.769 in Aprilfutures yesterday.

PG&E Energy Services kicked off the new year with a bangyesterday by announcing it inked a major deal with Equity OfficeProperties Trust, the largest publicly held owner and manager ofoffice properties in the nation, to supply electricity to itsoffice buildings in northern California.