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El Paso Field Services entered the energy project financingarena with last week’s purchase of En Cap Investment Co. for $52million in cash and stock. Robert Phillips, El Paso Field Services’president, said all regulatory issues have been settled and thedeal will be accretive to El Paso’s earnings beginning April 1.

Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) parent Unicom received about $1.76billion over book value last week in the largest divestiture yet ofa utility’s fossil-fueled power plants. Edison International’sindependent power subsidiary is buying 9,772 MW of ComEd’s coal-and gas-fired baseload and peaking plants for $5 billion.

The nation’s largest gas distributor, Southern California Gas,last week signaled a possible future change in the way itscustomers access intrastate transmission during oral arguments atthe CPUC on future changes in California’s gas industry. Inaddition, for the first time, a number of the 19 major participantsin the state’s gas restructuring proceeding suggested a settlementprocess might be adopted to resolve some controversial issues.

The Senate unanimously passed two economic relief measures forindependent oil and gas producers last week. The bad news, however,is that the initiatives are part of a supplemental spending billthat President Clinton has threatened to veto because theexpenditures – mostly for foreign aid efforts – would cut intospending for domestic programs that he supports.

National Fuel Gas used a hearing in the Pennsylvania senate last week to voice its opposition to the state’s gas deregulation bill. It is the only LDC to oppose the bill so far.

BP Amoco and the Williams Cos. announced last week they have reached a partial settlement with the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, while leaving the key issues of their dispute to be determined in an upcoming Supreme Court case. The settlement released Williams and BP Amoco from all claims included in the Southern Utes’ lawsuit against them but did not address key ownership issues.

Midcoast Energy of Houston continued an ongoing buying spree last week. This time, however, the company has set its sights to the North. Subsidiary Midcoast Canada Operating Corp. bought the Calmar gas treating plant and gathering system in Alberta from Probe Exploration Inc. for C$20 million (US$13.2 million). The company said it has its sights on similar acquisitions in the future.

El Paso’s Caprock (NM) Station is down for emergency maintenancethat began Tuesday and will last at least through March 31. Afterthat point one of the two compressor units should be available, thepipeline said. San Juan Crossover capacity is being limited toabout 550 MMcf/d. El Paso encouraged shippers to use theTranswestern interconnect at Window Rock (AZ) to maximize flowsfrom San Juan Basin.

In a terse letter to FERC last week, Cuba Wadlington Jr.,Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line’s senior vice president and generalmanager, became the first pipeline representative to formallycriticize the Commission’s recent departure from its long-standingpolicy of issuing preliminary determinations on pipeline expansionapplications. Wadlington said Transco officials are disappointedabout the decision, which affects their MarketLink project, theproposed Independence Pipeline – in which Transco is a partner -the upstream ANR-sponsored SupplyLink project and the competingMillennium Pipeline project.