Offers

Independence Pipeline and ANR Pipeline are offering a newnegotiated basis rate option for shippers who sign on for 10 yearsstarting Nov. 1, 2002 for firm transportation from Chicago to theLeidy Hub in Pennsylvania.

Responding to regulatory and industry warnings of potentialpower outages this summer, Pacific Gas and Electric Co., SanFrancisco, has begun offering its largest customers payments forvoluntarily curtailing at least 20% of their loads during peaksummer days. The large combination utility covering the northernhalf of California is targeting its 450 largest customers and arelatively few small businesses to obtain up to 500 MW of savingsin a given peak hour.

It could be argued everyone is a stakeholder in electricrestructuring, and yesterday it seems just about everyone gottogether and weighed in at Congress with the issue. A broad-basedgroup of organizations has developed a list of 23 principles itbelieves should be considered in any federal restructuringlegislation.

Breaking new ground in Florida’s gas industry, City Gas Co., anNUI Corp. utility subsidiary, announced last week that a newlypassed tariff has enabled third-party suppliers in its serviceterritory to sign commercial and industrial customers withoutrestriction. The new program, called the Commercial TransportationService, is the first choice program without limitations in thestate, City Gas said. The plan was approved in late November by theFlorida Public Service Commission (PSC).

The Web site www.energyOn.com of Englewood, CO, has expanded itsservice territory to include gas service for business andresidential consumers in Maryland. The site currently offers aselection of competitive energy suppliers and products forconsumers in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, California,the District of Columbia, Virginia, and Maryland. The site alsorecently expanded the Pennsylvania market to include York County.

NiSource finally sweetened its unsolicited offer for Columbia Energy Group with a $74/share ($6.1 billion) bid last week — up from the prior offer of $68/share. It also laid down an olive branch by inviting five of Columbia’s top managers, including CEO Oliver G. “Rick” Richard, to take seats on an expanded NiSource board. Richard was offered a vice chairmanship.

NiSource finally sweetened its offer for Columbia Energy Groupyesterday to $74/share ($6.1 billion) from $68/share and laid downan olive branch by inviting five of Columbia’s top managers,including CEO Oliver G. “Rick” Richard, to take seats on anexpanded NiSource board. Richard was offered a vice chairmanship.

FERC has granted Transcontinental Gas Pipeline a “temporary,limited term waiver” of its tariff to require advancecapacity-release offers and nominations for the first week of theYear 2000 by Dec. 27 and 28, respectively. The waiver would extendthrough Jan. 7, Transco said, and would only be used in the eventof an unanticipated systems failure or other Y2K-related problems.

In order to keep pace with Maryland gas deregulation, WashingtonGas filed a rate plan with the Maryland Public Service Commission(MPSC) last week, proposing a five-year rate freeze and credits oncustomer bills if the company’s return on equity (ROE) exceeds 12%.Washington Gas hopes to have the filing approved this fall.