Picks

The New Power Company made another charge into Ohio last week as it announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire approximately 17,000 residential and small commercial natural gas customers, bringing the total number of customers it serves in Ohio to 167,000.

Denver-based Evergreen Resources Inc. picked up two coalbed methane properties last week, one in Alaska, the other in Colorado. In the first deal, Evergreen signed a purchase and sale agreement with Ocean Energy Inc. and Union Oil of California to acquire a 100% working interest in about 48,000 acres of prospective CBM properties in Alaska for $960,000 in cash. The other is a joint venture agreement for 29,000 acres of CBM properties in Colorado, near its core properties in the Raton Basin.

Denver-based Evergreen Resources Inc. picked up two coalbed methane properties this week, one in Alaska, the other in Colorado. In the first deal, Evergreen signed a purchase and sale agreement with Ocean Energy Inc. and Union Oil of California to acquire a 100% working interest in about 48,000 acres of prospective CBM properties in Alaska for $960,000 in cash. The other is a joint venture agreement for 29,000 acres of CBM properties in Colorado, near its core properties in the Raton Basin.

Denbury Resources Inc. has picked up almost all of the working interests in the West Mallalieu and Olive Fields located in southwestern Mississippi and another 14,000 acres in the Barnett Shale gas play in Texas, acquisitions expected to bring the Dallas-based company opportunities for oil and natural gas reserves and production growth.

Business infrastructure provider TIBCO Software Inc. announced Wednesday it had contracted with several energy companies — including Reliant Energy Services, Altra Energy Technologies Inc. and El Paso Corp. — to automate their back-office systems. The Palo Alto, CA-based company has four product lines now being used by more than 800 global customers that integrate enterprise applications, provide B2B commerce and deliver personalized enterprise portals.

Green Mountain Energy has completed its largest-ever energyaggregation contract – picking up more than 400,000 Ohioelectricity customers in a six-year agreement with Northeast OhioPublic Energy Council (NOPEC), a public electricity buying group.Green Mountain will provide natural gas and renewable wind andsolar energy to households in eight Ohio counties.

Union Gas said the Dawn gas market hub in Ontario set newrecords in 2000 for the volume and number of title transfers. Thehub recorded over 2.7 Tcf of title transfers last year, more thandouble the 1999 total of 1.3 Tcf. On average about 7.6 Bcf/d of gaschanged hands up from 3.7 Bcf in 1999.

To meet its divestiture requirements and pay down some debt,American Electric Power Co. said it will sell a 500 MW naturalgas-fired plant in Texas to TECO Power Services for $265 million incash. Columbus, OH-based AEP was required by the Federal EnergyRegulatory Commission to sell the Frontera facility, located nearthe Texas-Mexican border, to complete its Central and South WestCorp. merger.

The Bush White House tapped Commissioner Curt L. Hebert Jr. asits chairman, according to an announcement by the Federal EnergyRegulatory Commission yesterday.