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The Natural Gas Supply Association (NGSA), which represents thenation’s major gas producers, earlier this week placed itspresident, Nicholas J. Bush, on administrative leave without pay inthe wake of an investigation and a subsequent civil lawsuitaccusing him of misappropriating more than $2 million from thegroup since the late 1980s. The D.C. Superior Court, where the suitwas filed, has issued a temporary restraining order against Bushand has continued the case until Feb. 26 [Docket No. 001028-99].

Concerned that a threshold number of Atlanta Gas Light (AGL)customers in certain warmer regions of Georgia may not switch toalternative suppliers by the next winter heating season, theGeorgia Public Service Commission is taking action to changeGeorgia’s gas competition law, SB 216, to get AGL out of themerchant function possibly by next fall.

Most oil and gas companies – 94% – report they expect to befully Y2K ready by next September, according to a survey that wasreleased yesterday at a conference of the oil and gas sectorworking group of the President’s Council on Year 2000 Conversion.

Natural gas prices continued in their march of monotonyyesterday, as neither buyers nor sellers were able to tip the scalein their favor. Flatness ruled as a result, with many pricinglocations unchanged.

Natural gas futures, which have been caught in a downtrend sincelast summer, ticked quietly lower yesterday in a dull tradingsession. No fresh news was seen to lift the market higher and as aresult, the March contract was free to follow the overall trend byslipping 1.9 cents to $1.776 at the close. And although the Marchcontract has only slipped 5 cents lower since becoming the promptmonth on Jan. 27, it has dropped a whopping 82.4 cents, or morethan 30% from its $2.60 high set on April 8.

Columbia, SC-based SCANA Corp. nearly doubled its regulated gascustomer base in the fast-growing Carolinas yesterday with thepurchase of Public Service Company of North Carolina (PSNC) for$900 million, including the assumption of about $250 million inPSNC debt. The combination will serve 517,000 electric, 760,000 gascustomers in the Carolinas and Georgia and 350,000telecommunications customers throughout the Southeast. Total annualrevenues for the combined company will be about $2 billion andmarket capitalization will be about $6 billion.

TPC Corp. is changing hands yet again. This time NIPSCOIndustries subsidiary NI Energy Services is buying Houston-basedTPC for $132.5 million from PacifiCorp. The deal also involves apayment for working capital to be determined at closing. NI EnergyServices also gets PacifiCorp’s 66% interest in Market Hub PartnersLP (MHP)

Amid the fiery criticism of FERC’s proposed auction mechanism,Mississippi River Transmission (MRT) is suffering a similar fate asits proposed tariff revisions for implementing auction procedureshave come under attack from marketers and producers.

A Houston marketer invoked the wisdom of baseball great YogiBerra to describe Tuesday’s cash market: “It’s deja vu all overagain.” In other words, it was like most of February’s previoustrading activity-generally flat with tight ranges. However, thoughthere was little if any change at any point, whatever changes didoccur were slightly to the downside. They were limited to 1-3 centsin all cases.