Longer

It’s taken a little longer than expected, but on Friday, CrossBay Pipeline Co. LLC of Houston fulfilled a two-year plus dream byfiling an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commissionto increase natural gas deliveries into the New York Citymetropolitan area by 125,000 Dth/d. The proposed project now has atargeted in-service date of Dec. 1, 2002.

Enterprise Oil, the largest independent exploration andproduction company in Europe, apparently couldn’t resist the marketopportunities in the U.S. any longer. The company paid $127.3million last week for all of drilling company R&B Falcon Corp’sE&P interests in the Gulf of Mexico. The transaction covers a50% stake in the Boomvang field about 100 miles south of Galveston,TX, and a major stake in the Gyrafalcon prospect, which is about100 miles offshore Lousisiana in Green Canyon block 20.

Enterprise Oil, the largest independent exploration andproduction company in Europe, apparently couldn’t resist the marketopportunity in the U.S. any longer. The company paid $127.3 millionyesterday for all of drilling company R&B Falcon Corp’s E&Pinterests in the Gulf of Mexico, which includes a 50% stake in theBoomvang field about 100 miles south of Galveston, TX, and a majorstake in the Gyrafalcon prospect, which is about 100 miles offshoreLousisiana in Green Canyon block 20.

Three years ago, Reliant Energy was a Texas-based,Texas-centered utility, but that’s no longer true. On Friday, theHouston-based utility improved its presence in the mid-Atlanticregion, completing a $2.1 billion acquisition from Sithe Energiesof 21 power plants in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland (PJM).The facilities together total 4,276 MW of net generating capacity,and bring Reliant’s domestic generating capacity to 23 MMW.

Three years ago, Reliant Energy was a Texas-based,Texas-centered utility, but that’s no longer true. On Friday, theHouston-based utility improved its presence in the Mid-Atlanticregion, completing a $2.1 billion acquisition from Sithe Energiesof 21 power plants in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland (PJM).The facilities together total 4,276 MW of net generating capacityand bring Reliant’s domestic generating capacity to 23,000 MW.

With the Independence Pipeline project continuing its strugglethrough the landowner gauntlet in the Midwest and through thelonger-than-average regulatory review at FERC, Coastal Corp. isattempting a different approach for its proposed Gulfstream NaturalGas System in the Gulf of Mexico and Florida. The company plans toget the word out to local officials early and claims it wants asmuch public input as possible prior to filing an application withFERC this fall.

PennzEnergy Co. and Sonat Exploration Co. formed a joint ventureto develop mineral interests underlain by coal bed methane at the700,000-acre Vermejo Park Ranch in northeast New Mexico.PennzEnergy has held the bulk of the mineral rights since 1970.

The only thing John Olson, senior energy analyst for SandersMorris and Mundy, needed last week following his speech at aproducers’ conference on gas supply and demand at the Canadianembassy in Washington, D.C., was a producer to volunteer to step upon stage and be slapped around.

While in the longer term PacifiCorp’s merger partner has notruled out possible expansions into natural gas, water and eventelecommunications, ScottishPower PLC first plans to followPacifiCorp’s renewed focus on its vertically integrated electricitybusiness in the Western U.S. The $12.8 billion merger, includingdebt assumption, which was announced early last week, still mustpass U.S. state and federal regulators, along with Australianauthorities, however.