Mind

KeySpan apparently had a grand design in mind when it purchased the Algonquin LNG peak shaving facility in Rhode Island from Duke Energy last December (see Daily GPI, Dec. 16). The company has announced an agreement with BG LNG Services to upgrade the facility and turn it into an LNG import terminal that could be ready to take deliveries in 2005.

With FERC-ordered mitigation measures on wholesale power prices in the western part of the country set to expire later this year, Commission Chairman Pat Wood on Thursday disclosed that he’s traveling to California this week to, among other things, receive assurances that the region’s market rules and infrastructure are on enough of a solid footing that those caps can be lifted when they expire at the end of September.

After listening to weeks of confusing and often mind-numbing testimony, FERC Chief Administrative Law Judge Curtis Wagner Jr. tossed parties a curve last week when he “strongly encourage[d]” them to reach a money settlement in the high-profile dispute in which El Paso Corp. affiliates are accused of engaging in illegal activity to inflate prices for natural gas in the California market.

Switching games? Or mind games? This past week, a Washington,D.C.-based nonprofit group, United Homeowners Association, called apress conference to charge that nationwide, utilities are playing”switching games” with consumers who attempt to move to alower-cost competitor, or who attempt to use online energycompanies.

Despite his promise to the gas industry last year that he wouldn’t change the Pipeline Safety Act of 1995 (see Daily GPI, March 19, 1999), Congressman Bob Franks (R-NJ), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee, who also is running for a Senate seat in his home state, introduced a bill last week that would do just that. His legislation joined a growing stack of pipeline safety bills that have been introduced this session.

Gas price bulls can sit pretty this summer as industry analystsagree that the stage is set for strong demand, stressed supply andhigher prices in both the futures and cash markets.