Nation

Coral Energy won a two-year contract last week to manage thesupply and upstream natural gas assets of KeySpan Energy, theparent company of the nation’s fourth largest gas utility BrooklynUnion, which serves 1.6 million customers in New York City and LongIsland. The deal also covers the fuel supply for KeySpan’s 6,000 MWof electric power generation on Long Island. Financial terms of thedeal, which became effective April 1, were not disclosed. Thecontract was awarded following an 11-month review of competitivebids from multiple marketing and trading companies.

The nation’s biggest municipal utility, the City of Los AngelesDepartment of Water and Power, has signed 27 of its largestcustomers to discount contracts valued collectively at $1.2 billionover their seven- and 10-year lives. The deals represent about 8%of the departments electricity sales which are projected to be 25GWh this year, according to Randy Howard, LADWP’s manager of thelong-term contracts.

Despite warming temperatures across much of the nation andforecasts calling for more of the same, natural gas futuresrebounded yesterday, as traders covered shorts amid heavilyoversold conditions and ahead of potentially “very bullish” storagedata to be released today.

Atlanta-based Southern Company Energy Marketing, the energytrading and marketing arm of the nation’s largest producer ofelectricity, agreed in principle to manage the assets ofPan-Alberta Gas Ltd., the second-largest Canadian gas exporter.

One of the nation’s largest and fastest growing municipalutilities, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) Tuesdaysigned a multi-million-dollar five-year deal for 150 MW ofpurchased power from Calpine Corp. Terms of the agreement werebeing kept confidential. The deal starts in the summer of 2001when Calpine’s first new natural gas-fired merchant generationplants in Sutter County begins operations about 50 miles north ofSacramento in northern California. Now under construction, theSutter plant is the first of a series that Calpine and othermerchant generators are planning to build in California over thenext five to ten years.

The purchase of the combined gas and electric utilityMidAmerican Energy by Berkshire Hathaway Inc., one of the nation’slargest and most successful investment groups led by legendaryinvestment guru Warren Buffett, could focus increased financialinterest on the industry.

One of the nation’s fastest growing nonutility power plantdeveloper/operators, Calpine Corp., San Jose, CA, is taking ahands-on approach to building a diversified natural gas portfolioto fuel what it eventually hopes is a network of highly efficient,environmentally clean combined-cycle power plants with a collectivecapacity of 25,000 megawatts.

California, as the nation’s early poster child for energyindustry restructuring, has to bite the bullet and decide if itwants robust retail competition for natural gas and electricity, orwhether it wants to stop where it is now with wholesalecompetition, “declare victory and everyone go home,” said thestate’s top energy regulator, Richard Bilas, an economist andpresident of the California Public Utilities Commission. If itwants retail competition, then the state should consider adoptingsome of the aspects of Georgia’s gas restructuring andPennsylvania’s electricity changes.

Western Resources yesterday threatened to cut its losses andsell the company to a national energy conglomerate because of adecision by the Kansas Corporation Commission (KCC) to reopen thedocket on its merger with Kansas City Power and Light. The KCCissued an order late Monday to reopen the merger docket because ofa stipulation and agreement Western signed with the Missouri PublicService Commission staff and others in the Missouri docket.