Marketing

Illinova Energy Partners, one of the top-30 largest powermarketing operations in the nation, grabbed a foothold in theMichigan retail gas and power market with the purchase of EMC GasTransmission Co. Terms of the merger were not disclosed.

Burned so badly that it subsequently got out of the gas andelectric marketing business, LG&E Energy nevertheless has urgedthe Federal Energy Regulatory Commission not to interfere with theinfant electric market by imposing price caps. The marketer, whichhad been among the largest in the business, said the price run-upin June to the neighborhood of $7,000 per MWh for gas deliveredinto Cinergy was part of the “growing pains” of an immaturecommodities market.

UtiliCorp United said its power marketing operations willcontribute positively to second quarter earnings before interestand taxes. Wholesale electricity volumes for the quarter areexpected to be about 24.8 million MWh, up about 112% from the 1997quarter.

Metrocall Inc. of Alexandria, VA, announced it has entered intoa new two-year strategic marketing agreement with Washington Gas tooffer Metrocall pagers and services to the utility’s customer basein the Washington, D.C. and parts of Maryland.

Duke Energy Trading and Marketing formed an alliance withOrlando, FL-based Enviro-Check to sell gas and energy services tothe multi-family housing (MFH) industry. The agreement is a uniqueteaming of a major gas and power marketer with a conservation andsub-metering company.

PECO Energy launched a new energy services and retail energymarketing company, called Exelon Energy, which will combine thediverse operations of Horizon Energy, PECO Energy/Energy One andPECO Energy/Horizon Group.

A last-minute protest by Scana Energy Marketing to a requestedwaiver by Atlanta Gas Light to allow assignment of some of itsupstream pipeline capacity as part of the Georgia unbundling planmay have been a factor in derailing FERC action last week.

Congressional proponents of royalty in-kind legislation, whichwould force the government to assume the cost of transporting andmarketing its royalty portion of oil and gas production, aredrawing large sums of political action committee donations, softmoney and individual contributions from the oil and gas industry.

Avista Energy said it’s quickly moving up in the gas and powermarketer rankings, increasing its power sales by 90% in the firstquarter of 1998 compared with the fourth quarter of last year andgrowing gas trading volumes by 42% over the same period.