Marketer

Piedmont Natural Gas said Monday it is not a party to the lawsuit filed by AGL Resources on behalf of gas marketer SouthStar Energy Services LLC against Dynegy Marketing and Trade. Piedmont (30%), AGL (50%) and Dynegy (20%) are partners in Southstar, which operates in Georgia under the trade name of Georgia Natural Gas Services.

Houston-based energy marketer Dynegy Inc. is joining an impressive list of companies poised to build U.S.-based liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities, announcing Thursday it will construct a plant at its existing liquefied petroleum gas terminal site in Hackberry, LA. Because the Gulf Coast site is already developed, the facility could be operational two to three years sooner than a greenfield project, with the first phase of commercial operation set for the end of 2003.

Houston-based energy marketer Dynegy Inc. is joining an impressive list of companies poised to build U.S.-based liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities, announcing Thursday it will construct a plant at its existing liquefied petroleum gas terminal site in Hackberry, LA. Because the Gulf Coast site is already developed, the facility could be operational two to three years sooner than a greenfield project, with the first phase of commercial operation set for the end of 2003.

Gas volumes among the top 20 North American marketers continued to show significant growth in the first quarter of the year with nearly a 40 Bcf/d rise in volumes compared to 1Q2000 and a 14.9 Bcf/d increase compared to 4Q2000 (see Table). The big volume gainers for the quarter (1Q2001 versus 1Q2000) were El Paso, Enron, BP, Mirant, Sempra and Reliant, while the only volume decreases in the top 20 were posted by Coral, Aquila and Williams.

Gas volumes among the top 20 North American marketers continued to show significant growth in the first quarter of the year with nearly a 40 Bcf/d rise in volumes compared to 1Q2000 and a 14.9 Bcf/d increase compared to 4Q2000 (see Table). The big volume gainers for the quarter (1Q2001 versus 1Q2000) were El Paso, Enron, BP, Mirant, Sempra and Reliant, while the only volume decreases in the top 20 were posted by Coral, Aquila and Williams.

California power marketer/generators blasted the state transmission grid operator’s (Cal-ISO’s) federally filed market stabilization plan as potentially being “extremely detrimental” to the state’s struggling electricity markets and urged the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to reject it. The plan promises to cause “more blackouts in the West, chase away much-needed new generation, and jack up wholesale power costs,” according to the Western Power Trading Forum, a trade and lobbying group for marketers, scheduling coordinators, power exchanges and generators. The Cal-ISO proposal includes price caps and restrictions on selling California-generated power out of state. “It is yet another attempt to heap more rules on an already overruled market,” said Gary Ackerman, executive director of the trading forum.

“The market is tanking. That pretty well sums it all up in anutshell,” was how a Gulf Coast marketer characterized the pricesituation Wednesday. Only California, where a series of rollingblackouts began in the northern part of the state (see related story), failed to participate infurther price declines that were mostly between about a quarter and 50cents.

Western Natural Gas, a Denver-based marketing company, isphasing out its retail marketing business in the face of increasingnatural gas prices and the capital requirements necessary to obtainsupplies.

The substantial energy management outsourcing relationshipbetween New England gas distributor Yankee Gas and energy marketerTransCanada Gas Services continues to grow. After a competitivebidding process, Yankee signed a new one-year contract that allowsTransCanada to manage another large part of Yankee’s gas supply,storage and long-haul pipeline capacity.