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AES Corp., a world-wide power generation company, announced thatit has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire New EnergyVentures Inc. (NEV), an energy service firm for large commercialand industrial buyers, in a transaction valued at approximately $90million.

Wrangling over two Oklahoma Natural Gas Co. (ONG) rate cases andunbundling of the ONG system continues in Oklahoma. OklahomaCorporation Commission Chairman Ed Apple last week voted against astipulated agreement between the commission and ONG. The agreement,which was killed in a 2-to-1 vote, had previously been appealed byOklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson. The AG maintained he wasdenied due process in negotiations between the commission and ONG.Edmondson also alleged ex parte communications took place betweenONG and Commissioner Denise Bode.

Due to expected high storage injections over the Memorial Dayweekend, Columbia Gas Transmission is not accepting SIT or ISSinjections, imbalance paybacks or Maximum Daily Injection Quantityoverruns today through Monday. Upstream affiliate Columbia Gulf,which has no storage facilities, said Thursday it is not acceptingany payback gas through June 30. The pipe is finishing pigging oflaterals and preparing to begin mainline pigging operations, aspokesman said, so it wants to avoid any problems with excesssupplies.

After plumbing to the lowest levels in over a month Monday, thefutures market rallied yesterday as scale down commercial buyingreceived unexpected support from local traders eager to reverseshort positions. The June contract finished at $2.200, up 2.4 centsfor the day.

The Royal Dutch/Shell Group announced one of its top executives,Steven Miller, 53, will take over as president, CEO and chairman ofits Houston-based subsidiary, Shell Oil Co. July 1 with theretirement of Jack Little who turned 60 last year. Little had beenpresident for a year. Miller, who will give up his managingdirector titles with the parent company, said in a writtenstatement, he would like to see the U.S. branch “even more closelyaligned with the rest of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group in order todeal with competitive realities more effectively on a globalbasis.”

In the race to obtain as much of the bounteous Florida market aspossible, Williams has taken the early lead over Coastal as thecompany reported 1.3 Bcf/d in nominations received during theBuccaneer Pipeline open season. The open season ended in lateMarch.

Political forces are prevailing over economics in California’songoing efforts to finish the job of unbundling its natural gas andelectricity industries, and no one in the newly elected Gov. GrayDavis’s administration so far is getting involved, according toenergy industry observers in the state capital in Sacramento. As aresult, three months into 1999, the five-member California PublicUtilities Commission is operating with two vacant seats, stillawaiting gubernatorial appointments.

In a classic states’ rights confrontation, California ischallenging FERC jurisdiction over the operation of the state’s twononprofit organizations created to make electric restructuring runsmoothly, the Independent System Operator (ISO) overseeing thetransmission grid and the Power Exchange (PX) providing a wholesalespot electricity market. Two bills have been proposed in the statelegislature to change the status of the ISO and PX in directresponse to FERC jurisdictional questions.

While Congress continues its unending debate over repeal of thePublic Utility Holding Company Act (PUHCA), the Securities andExchange Commission (SEC) just about did the deed last week with anorder allowing a subsidiary of the California-based Sempra Energyto have controlling interest in a North Carolina partnership thatwill construct, own and operate a gas utility distribution systemin North Carolina. (Rel. 35-26971)