Market

Duke Energy Power Services and the Utility Commission of theCity of New Smyrna Beach in Florida filed plans with the FloridaPublic Service Commission (FPSC) to build and operate a 500 MWgas-fired merchant power plant in the city. In attempting to buildthe first merchant power plant in the state, Duke will be runningthe gauntlet of opposition from entrenched utilities.

For a change the cash market demonstrated some independence fromthe futures screen influence Wednesday. Even as futures followedTuesday’s downtick of nearly 6 cents with an even bigger diveyesterday, quotes at nearly all non-Western points either held flator managed to tack on up to 3-4 cents. This ran contrary to what anumber of traders had expected.

Cash prices softened a bit Tuesday in mostly featureless tradingas major markets in the Midwest and Northeast cooled off. Themajority of points saw prices ranging from flat to down about anickel with no single region standing out as especially strong orweak. About the only exception to that general rule wasintra-Alberta, which started off around Monday’s C$2.04-05 averagebut quickly ramped up to near the top end of Monday’s range andwound up gaining about a nickel overall, a marketer reported. Forwhatever reason provincial field receipts have been lower thanexpected this week, she said, although only a few plants are stillundergoing annual turnaround maintenance.

With the Viking Voyageur project on-hold, ANR Pipeline announcedplans to move in and grab more of the Midwest market. The pipelinesaid it intends to build another expansion designed to providetransportation from its Joliet Hub near Chicago to delivery pointsin Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois. An open season for service,which is expected to begin Nov. 1, 2000 or later, will be held fromJuly 1 through Aug. 1.

Retail energy service providers and marketers now have an addedpotential way to reach into California’s mass market residentialand small business customers by buying part of the utility billingenvelope space. Under new state regulatory rules, investor-ownedenergy utilities (IOUs) are opening access to their ubiquitousbills that are mailed regularly to millions of customers.

Southern California Gas and TransEnergy Management have formed apartnership to market an integrated software product to unbundlinglocal distributors who are struggling with exponentially greaternumbers of transportation contracts.

Midcoast Interstate Transmission’s efforts to continue itsmonopoly control of the pipeline transportation market in northernAlabama fell by the wayside last week when FERC rejected its twocontroversial project proposals citing disinterest on the part ofshippers.

Duke Energy subsidiary Duke Energy Industrial Asset Developmentand Primary Energy, a subsidiary of NIPSCO Industries, are formingan alliance to market on-site generation to energy-intensivebusinesses in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi.

Enron Corp. is jumping into the California electric power marketwith a plan to develop a 500-MW gas-fired, merchant power plant inPittsburg, CA. Although the figures are not their analysis, EnronCapital and Trade Resources officials said the state needs some6,000 MW of new generating capacity by 2002.