Motion

Arizona Public Service (APS) will file a motion to reconsider a move to slow down deregulation, after the three-member Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) on Tuesday voted unanimously to reverse a 1999 requirement that the state’s utilities divest their generating assets. The vote followed a ruling by the commission’s administrative law judge in July, who recommended that Arizona delay competition past July 2004 because the wholesale market was not ready (see Power Market Today, Aug. 28).

Two months after it set the plan in motion, Kansas City, MO-based UtiliCorp United said that it has received all approvals necessary for the company’s exchange offer under which it plans to acquire all of the outstanding publicly held Class A common shares of its 80%-owned subsidiary, Aquila Inc. UtiliCorp first announced the strategy in early November, citing recent significant changes in the merchant energy sector, the general economy and the impact of these changes on the capital markets.” (see Daily GPI, Nov. 8, 2001).

Stemming the selling pressure set in motion by Wednesday’s storage report, the natural gas futures market rebounded mid-morning Thursday as traders contemplated a supply-demand balance that may be tighter than previously thought. In a rare twist, the 12-month strip gained more (9.5 cents) than either the winter strip (9 cents) or the prompt month (6.8 cents). November closed at $2.486, just off its daily high at $2.51.

An AGL Resources subsidiary, Atlanta Gas Light Co., said it will file a motion for reconsideration next week in response to the Georgia Public Service Commission’s vote to launch a rate review earlier this week into AGLC’s earnings. After two separate but related studies, the GPSC staff alleges that AGLC’s earnings are 4-7% more than its authorized return on equity (ROE) (see Daily GPI, Aug. 23).

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has denied a motion for a stay and remand of its earlier orders authorizing construction of Guardian Pipeline, a 141-mile, 36-inch line designed to deliver up to 750 MMcf/d from the Chicago Hub near Joliet, IL, to southeastern Wisconsin.

Anadarko Petroleum Corp., which last week set in motion anaggressive Rocky Mountain strategy, said Friday it would investC$380 million ($260 million) in its Calgary-based Canadiansubsidiary to drill 600 wells throughout western Canada in a pushto bring production there to 74,000 net boe/d in 2001.

An Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) with the California PublicUtilities Commission (CPUC) has recommended the Commission approvean emergency motion by Southern California Edison to freeze theformula for avoided cost payments to qualifying facilities at theAugust rate of $4.5133/MMBtu, rather than post the September rateof $6.4567.

Southern California Edison filed a motion late last week withthe California Public Utility Commission seeking emergency relieffrom high spot gas prices on which its power purchase rates arebased. The company told the CPUC that Southern California Border(Topock, AZ) prices in the last month have risen by $2.50/MMBtupossibly because of market manipulation, in particular thewithholding off of the market of pipeline transportation capacitybetween the supply basins and the California border.

Through a partnership announced yesterday with Endesco, afor-profit subsidiary of the Institute of Gas Technology (IGT),NiSource Inc. subsidiary EnergyUSA said it is advancing plans tobecome a major provider of residential fuel cells in the emergingmarket for distributed generation technology.