Places

Energy management contracts continue to pop up in the strangestplaces, as Enron Energy Services (EES) found in taking over theenergy needs of the Quaker Oats Co. The deal announced yesterdaycovers 17 of the company’s packaged food and beverage facilities.Enron said the multi-million dollar deal is good for 10 years.

Monday’s market was a reversal of the price trends seen Friday:now it was the East getting softer while most of the West reboundedfrom its weekend declines.

Despite strong demand and soaring crude prices, EIA places mostof the blame for the current high gas price situation on tightsupply. “Although rising crude oil prices have encouraged naturalgas prices to advance, the primary cause of these elevated gasprices has been the delicate supply situation,” EIA said.

There’s a major oil and natural gas boom going on now in one ofthe most unlikely places in the United States – northeasternTennessee.

There’s a major oil and natural gas boom happening in one of themost unlikely places in the United States — northeasternTennessee.

S&S Energy Products, a GE Power Systems business, wasawarded a $280 million contract from Reliant Energy of Houston toprovide 19 GE LM6000 aeroderivative gas turbine-generator sets,auxiliary and balance-of-plant equipment.

In Washington, it usually pays to know people in high places.But even Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-AK) couldn’t help Nicholas Bush,the ex-president of the Natural Gas Supply Association (NGSA), whowas sentenced to 3 1/2 years in federal prison for embezzlementlast week and ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $3.5million.

There were very few places outside the extreme southwesterncorner of the U.S. still seeing high temperatures any greater than70 degrees Tuesday, and the growing chill was manifested in furthergas price increases. Though milder than Monday’s gains and almostnon-existent in California and parts of the Rockies, the new pricehikes were generally on either side of a dime in the Gulf Coast,Midcontinent/Midwest and Northeast. Much like the day before,Northeast citygates tended to rise the most between 10 and 14cents.

The proposed mega-merger of American Electric Power (AEP) andCentral and Southwest Corp. (CSW) was placed on hold earlier thisweek as FERC set the case for an evidentiary hearing, saying that”sufficient concerns” had been raised about potential market powerin both the transmission and generation arenas.