Pull

The energy merchant business may be a much smaller universe today, but Mirant has no plans to pull out of the sector, CEO Marce Fuller said Friday.

Aquila Inc. said last Thursday it has exited its investment in the Lodi Gas Storage Project in northern California as part of its continuing effort to pull out of non-core businesses and return to its regulated utility roots.

Aquila Inc. said Thursday it has exited its investment in the Lodi Gas Storage Project in northern California as part of its continuing effort to pull out of non-core businesses and return to its regulated utility roots.

Draper added that with the pull out, there will be “significant reductions” in personnel, but he did not have any specific figures. The downsizing of merchant activity also will reduce AEP’s working capital needs, according to CFO Susan Tomasky. She said specific guidance would soon be ready, but added, “clearly, the working capital needs for 2003 [will be] reduced significantly.”

Seeking to pull itself out of the Enron quagmire, Arthur Andersen reportedly is attempting to negotiate a settlement with Enron shareholders, unsecured creditors and employees in Enron’s 401(k) retirement plan, according to a story this morning in the Wall Street Journal.

Without another large storage injection to pull the rug out from under the market (AGA delayed its report until Thursday), technical factors and a short-term cold front that’s expected to move across the Midwest and Northeast later in the week enabled November gas futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange to continue climbing Wednesday. The near-month contract reached a high of $2.360 and settled at $2.320, which was a 5.2-cent daily increase. The daily low was $2.270.

In another blow to the Canada-to-New York Millennium Pipeline project, TransCanada Pipelines Ltd. and St. Clair Pipelines Ltd. — sponsors of the Canadian leg of the proposed line — have withdrawn their applications from the National Energy Board (NEB).

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, prices continued to slide Wednesday for pretty much the same reasons that they have through nearly all of the May aftermarket so far: a relative dearth of weather demand for either heating or air conditioning; a weak screen; and a decidedly blasé attitude about any urgency in refilling storage.

The U.S. Minerals Management Service may feel sort of like a push-me pull-you animal in the next few months as state and federal officials argue about December’s proposed Eastern Gulf of Mexico federal lease Sale 181. The proposed leases provide a 15-mile buffer zone off Baldwin County, AL, but most are more than 100 miles from Florida — a region where drilling is opposed by Gov. Jeb Bush.