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The latest lease sale by the Texas General Land office raised$9.2 million Tuesday, down considerably from previous sales of thisspring. The highest bids for tracts were in the bays along thecoast, with the highest single bid from Sabco Oil & Gas Corp.of more than $1.11 million for 320 acres in Corpus Christi Bay. Thesecond highest bidder was Petsec Energy Inc., totaling $275,572 foran 1,135-acre High Island tract off Jefferson County in the Gulf ofMexico. The third highest bidder was Seneca Resources Corp. for a320-acre gulf tract off Brazoria County. The Seneca bid was$236,309.

Southern California has become the latest hot spot for gaspipeline competition. Following the successful $50,000 bid twoweeks ago for Southern California Gas’ option to purchase (in 2012)the California portion of the Kern River Pipeline, Williams wastedno time in drawing up plans for Kern River’s first major extensionproject since going into operation in 1992.

Columbia Energy Group moved into the group of Donaldson, Lufkin& Jenrette’s “top picks” for natural gas investors in thefirm’s latest Natural Gas Outlook 1999-2003. The report is thebiannual update of the firm’s analyses and recommendations in thegas industry.

New Mexico is the latest state to be labeled unfit forresidential energy marketing by Enron Corp., North America’slargest wholesale energy marketing firm. As in other states, suchas California, where Enron came to a similar conclusion, thecompany plans to continue participating in commercial andindustrial energy marketing. But the regulatory structure will makeit difficult, if not impossible, to compete profitably against theincumbent gas supplier, Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM),Enron said.

The futures market shrugged off the latest AGA storage reportand made modest gains Thursday in a session notably devoid of freshnews. The August contract was limited to a narrow 5-cent range,settling up 1.4 cents to $1.948.

Texas Utilities Co. Tuesday acquired 72,560,178 Energy GroupShares at 840 pence/share, representing about 13.9% of The EnergyGroup’s issued share capital. The 840 pence/share offer was thelatest in the bidding war between TXU and PacifiCorp for theBritish Utility.

El Paso Energy CEO William A. Wise calls his company’s latestplanned acquisition the “yellow brick road” to deep-water Gulf ofMexico gas development. El Paso said it will buy DeepTechInternational’s interests in Leviathan Gas Pipeline through aseries of transactions worth about $450 million. Leviathan GasPipeline Partners produces, processes, gathers, transports andmarkets oil and gas in the offshore Gulf of Mexico.

Viking Voyageur Gas Transmission called on FERC to dismiss ANRPipeline’s latest attacks on its project, saying they were”thinly-veiled” efforts to prevent, or “at least delay for as longas possible,” construction of a pipeline project that would bringsorely-needed competition into ANR’s Wisconsin market area.Voyageur, which would import Canadian gas into several Midwestmarkets, “is a significant threat to ANR’s market dominance inWisconsin. As a result, ANR has made every possible effort tothwart the Commission’s pro-competitive policies by delayingVoyageur’s project,” the proposed pipeline said in comments at theCommission [CP98-65].