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Dynegy has announced plans to construct a 155 MW naturalgas-fired power generation facility, the Calcasieu GenerationProject, near Lake Charles, LA. Power generated at thesimple-cycle peaking facility will be sold in the wholesale powermarket starting in the second quarter of 2000.The plant will belocated on the site of a recently constructed natural gas liquidsfractionation facility operated by subsidiary Dynegy MidstreamServices Ltd. Partnership. The power will enter the grid through a230 kilovolt Entergy Services transmission line interconnect.

At the cost of a long fight and new orders to work overtime onimproving their community relations, Canadian producers have won avictory preserving access to a major drilling target: “sour”natural gas, laced with lethal hydrogen-sulphide.

The majority of cash points were down a few cents Thursday butstill sticking around in the vicinity of index levels. Despite somenegative influences, the California market even managed to maintainat least a nickel premium to index. Even with a huge swath of rainhaving a cooling effect on the Midwest and Northeast market areas,heat remained the big reason for only a modestly softeraftermarket. A screen drop of almost 9 cents had little impact oncash.

The Meridian Resource Corp. said flames still are shooting 150feet in the air from its Thibodaux No. 2 well near Amelia, LA, sixdays after the well was struck by lightening. The well wasscheduled to begin production in July with about 18 MMcf/d of gasand 1,800 b/d of condensate.

Dynegy has fired up its first constructed, owned and operatednatural gas-fired peaking plant, the 250 MW Rocky Road Power Plantnear Chicago, in time to serve the summer air conditioning load.Dynegy plans to sell the power generated at the merchant powerplant into the wholesale electricity market. As a peaking plant itwill run on an as-needed basis. The Rocky Road plant is part of thecompany’s previously announced plan to back up its trading unitwith a $5 billion generation expansion program. Dynegy is aiming toown or control more than 70,000 MW of generating capacity by 2003.It has 6,800 gross MW operating or under construction and recentlyannounced plans for two natural gas-fired 500 MW plants, one inHeard County, GA and another in Oldham County, KY.

As the date of random assignment draws near in Georgia’sderegulated gas market, Georgia Natural Gas Services (GNGS) iscatching up to Scana Corp. in terms of statewide market share. Dueto its success in the race for Georgia gas customers, GNGSannounced last Monday it will open a new call center in Cobb Countyto help answer newly-acquired customers’ questions. The Atlanta GasLight (AGL) affiliate has won over one-third of the 839,000 totalswitches, second only to Scana Corp.’s 38% market share.

As expected, cash prices for the long weekend that ended Maywere down across the board Friday, although not by as much at somepoints as sources had expected. A strong performance by the HenryHub futures contract for July largely failed to counteract a lot ofmild weather and the gas demand slump that nearly alwaysaccompanies a holiday period. The changes varied widely from barelyoff a penny or two to as much as 15 cents down, with almost everydegree in between represented.

Following last Friday’s near price-stalemate, bears were quickout of the blocks yesterday, and within the first hour of tradingthe June contract reached it’s lowest level since April 19. Themarket received a slight buying boost before the noon hour, butsellers were at it again yesterday afternoon, carving out a $2.145low in choppy trading activity. The June contract finished at$2.176, down 4.9 cents for the session.

Transwestern Pipeline has filed an application with FERC tobuild a new 10,000 hp compressor station near Thoreau, NM, off ofits San Juan Lateral and to add facilities to its Bloomfield and LaPlata compressor stations. The $11.6 million project will providean additional 50 MMcf/d of firm transportation service on the SanJuan Lateral downstream of the Bloomfield compressor station andwill allow Transwestern to operate its mainline at its certificatedcapacity of 1.1 Bcf/d on a firm basis.