Know

The energy online marketplace is crowded, confused and on theverge of shaking out and consolidating, according to three whoshould know, two CEOs of successful trading platforms and a Nymexexecutive, who yesterday shared their predictions at the EnergyRiskTech Conference in Houston.

The Gulf of Mexico’s shallow basin is a “great place” forsmaller independents now and into the future, according to threewho should know. Executives with three of the best performingindependents say their companies will continue to focus nearly allof their attention on finding natural gas in the shallow offshoreareas of Texas and Louisiana.

Just so you’ll know: “The natural gas market is a real successstory…..FERC has gotten an enormous amount of things right. Themarket may not be unblemished, but there are lots who consider thenatural gas market the best market in the world offering genuineprice discovery on a daily basis across dozens of products. It’ssomething everyone should be proud of,” Robert Levin of the NewYork Mercantile Exchange told a FERC conference last week.

The Gulf of Mexico’s shallow basin is a “great place” forsmaller independents now and into the future, according to threewho should know. Executives with three of the best performingindependents say their companies will continue to focus nearly allof their attention on finding natural gas in the shallow offshoreareas of Texas and Louisiana.

Just so you’ll know: “The natural gas market is a real successstory. …FERC has gotten an enormous amount of things right. Themarket may not be unblemished, but there are lots who consider thenatural gas market the best market in the world offering genuineprice discovery on a daily basis across dozens of products. It’ssomething everyone should be proud of,” Robert Levin of the NewYork Mercantile Exchange told a FERC conference yesterday.

In Washington, it usually pays to know people in high places.But even Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-AK) couldn’t help Nicholas Bush,the ex-president of the Natural Gas Supply Association (NGSA), whowas sentenced to 3 1/2 years in federal prison for embezzlementlast week and ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $3.5million.

TransCanada CEO Doug Baldwin let investors know last week thatthis year is just the beginning of the cost-cutting and assetshuffling at the company. He predicted assets sales would reach $3billion (out of a total of $26 billion) by the end of 2001,including what already has been put on the block this year.

TransCanada CEO Doug Baldwin let investors know that this yearis just the beginning of the cost-cutting and asset shuffling atthe company. He said to expect $3 billion of the company’s $26billion in assets to be put on the auction block by the end of2001. That includes those assets that have been or will be soldthis year: Angus Chemical, which was bought by Dow Chemical in thethird quarter; the prior transfer of ownership in Northern Borderto TC Pipelines LP; and the company’s liquids marketing business,which is expected to be sold in the fourth quarter. He warned thereis still a lot of underperforming fat to be trimmed, and anotherso-far-unannounced collection of assets could go in the fourthquarter.