Portfolio

FERC Chairman Pat Wood announced Thursday that the Commission’s auditing divisions have been consolidated within the Office of Market Oversight and Investigations (OMOI).

A day after filing an application with FERC to build the Pine Prairie Energy Center, a 24 Bcf capacity high-deliverability, salt dome storage facility near the Henry Hub, Sempra Energy announced the purchase of another proposed storage project in the region, Liberty Gas Storage in Calcasieu Parish, LA, from HNG Storage for an undisclosed sum.

Targa Resources Inc., whose veteran energy team is building a portfolio of natural gas gathering, processing and pipeline assets throughout the United States with partner Warburg Pincus, said Thursday it will buy two integrated gas systems in Texas and Louisiana from ConocoPhillips for an undisclosed amount.

Targa Resources Inc., whose veteran energy team is building a portfolio of natural gas gathering, processing and pipeline assets throughout the United States with partner Warburg Pincus, said Thursday it will buy two integrated gas systems in Texas and Louisiana from ConocoPhillips for an undisclosed amount.

Columbus, OH-based American Electric Power (AEP) announced Wednesday that it is soliciting bids for all 29 of the power generation units (4,497 MW) of its AEP Texas Central Co. subsidiary (formerly known as Central Power and Light) in an effort to accurately determine their market value and the company’s associated stranded costs. The assets include 12 separate plant sites with a net book value of $1.8 billion as of Dec. 31, 2001.

As it shuffles its portfolio, Houston-based Apache Corp. said it would auction 32 blocks in 18 western Gulf of Mexico fields that it acquired earlier this year from BP plc (see Daily GPI, March 19). The sale, said Apache, was part of its efforts to cut assets that don’t meet production or profitability goals.

Aquila Inc. will exit its once promising gas and power business in Australia, where it had been an active participant since 1995, after agreeing to sell its assets for nearly $589 million to a consortium representing Australian-based AlintaGas, AMP Henderson and their affiliates.

BP’s oil and natural gas reserves in Alaska approach 7 billion boe — the largest single item within its global portfolio — and with those types of numbers, the company will remain a major North Slope player for at least 40 years, and probably longer than that, an executive affirmed last week.

Even in the current political maelstrom surrounding some of its past trading practices during California’s energy crisis of 2000-2001, the City of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), the nation’s largest municipal utility, is financially and operationally secure in mid-2002, looking to expand its natural gas buying and power generation portfolios, according to its General Manager David Wiggs.