Outright

A group of industrial gas customers has called on FERC to “reject outright” Northern Natural Gas Co.’s proposed tariff changes that seek to inoculate the pipeline against credit-risky shippers.

Westar Industries Inc. plans to sell outright or sell an option to purchase its 45% stake in Tulsa-based Oneok Inc., which declined an offer from Westar in late August to buy back its stock. The uncertainty over Oneok’s future ownership profile, as well as its heavy debt load, prompted Moody’s Investors Service to downgrade Oneok’s credit rating Thursday.

Westar Industries Inc. said Thursday it will sell outright or sell an option to purchase its 45% stake in Tulsa-based Oneok, which declined an offer last week to buy back its stock (see Daily GPI, Aug. 23). The uncertainty over Oneok’s future ownership profile, prompted Moody’s Investors Service to downgraded the company’s credit rating Thursday.

FERC should either reject outright or suspend for the maximumfive-month period Dominion Transmission Inc.’s request for a”massive and unsupported rate increase” of $65 million, a municipalgas distributor contends.

In the wake of a summer-long lamenting of the dysfunction, ifnot outright death, of California’s attempt at creating competitiveretail electricity markets, the state’s small remaining band ofnonutility retailers, or “energy service providers” (ESPs), isweighing in with state officials and utilities trying to breathenew life into the state’s once-optimistic drive for moremarket-based energy solutions.

As opposed to rejecting it outright, FERC last week gave ANRPipeline another bite at the apple to justify its proposal toestablish firm and interruptible hourly flow services to meet thegrowing gas demand of electric generators. In the meantime, itaccepted and suspended the pipeline’s tariff sheets for theproposed services.