Provided

“Wanted: entry-level workers, roustabouts, floorhands, mechanicsand electricians. Training, benefits provided.” It’s a virtualposting in drilling companies’ offices across North America.Unemployment is so low, and jobs so plentiful across nearly everyjob sector that finding potential employees who are willing to workfor low-end wages in the oil and gas industry has reached acritical stage.

This week’s power and gas crunch in California, driving pricesskyrocketing for both, provided a glimpse of what merchant storageoperators need to make their operations more profitable, accordingto the state’s first nonutility underground storage project, WildGoose Storage. More price volatility and closer tracking betweenelectricity and natural gas prices makes merchant storage morevaluable.

“Wanted: entry-level workers, roustabouts, floorhands, mechanicsand electricians. Training, benefits provided.” It’s a virtualposting in drilling companies’ offices across North America.Unemployment is so low, and jobs so plentiful across nearly everyjob sector that finding potential employees who are willing to workfor low-end wages in the oil and gas industry has reached acritical stage.

The month of May provided a nice opportunity to become familiarwith the power emergency procedures that are likely to be utilizedduring peak demand periods in New England, New York, and theSouthwest this summer. The North American Electric ReliabilityCouncil’s 2000 Summer Assessment on the reliability of bulk powersupply officially confirmed last week that these three areasprobably will be challenged to meet peaking loads.

This week’s power and gas crunch in California, driving pricesskyrocketing for both, provided a glimpse of what merchant storageoperators need to make their operations more profitable, accordingto the state’s first nonutility underground storage project, WildGoose Storage. More price volatility and closer tracking betweenelectricity and natural gas prices makes merchant storage morevaluable.

The month of May provided a nice opportunity to become familiarwith the power emergency procedures that are likely to be utilizedduring peak demand periods in New England, New York, and theSouthwest this summer. The North American Electric ReliabilityCouncil’s 2000 Summer Assessment on the reliability of bulk powersupply concludes that these three areas probably will be challengedto meet peaking loads.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) approved the merger ofDominion Resources Inc. and Consolidated Natural Gas Co. (CNG)provided Dominion divests CNG subsidiary Virginia Natural Gas Inc.(VNG) to alleviate anticompetitive effects. Dominion, throughsubsidiary Virginia Power, accounts for more than 70% of allelectric power generation capacity in the Commonwealth of Virginia.CNG, through its ownership of VNG, is the primary distributor ofgas in southeastern Virginia. The proposed acquisition is valued atabout $5.3 billion.

A major pipeline group last week said there was “much to like”in the notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) that would, among otherthings, expand the blanket construction and abandonment certificateauthority for pipelines under FERC’s Part 157 regulations, but italso had “several major concerns.”

As a Daily GPI source had predicted Monday, that day’s futuresrun-up provided enough momentum to keep most cash market points onthe rise Tuesday. But don’t bet the farm on cash firmness tocontinue today, not after the screen’s headlong plunge Tuesday,several traders said. Despite heat waves remaining in the West andSouth, there is not enough in the way of fundamentals to counterthe screen’s negative influence, they said.