Reaching

Coming closer by the day to reaching its planned $1 billion asset divestiture goal, Aquila Inc. said Friday that its subsidiary UtiliCorp NZ Ltd. has completed the sale of its 70.2% interest in UnitedNetworks Ltd., a New Zealand-based energy company, to Vector Ltd. for approximately $503 million. Kansas City, MO-based Aquila said it expects to book a fourth quarter gain on the transaction estimated at approximately $28 million.

Coming closer by the day to reaching its planned $1 billion asset divestiture goal, Aquila, Inc. said Friday that its subsidiary UtiliCorp NZ Ltd. has completed the sale of its 70.2% interest in UnitedNetworks Ltd., a New Zealand-based energy company, to Vector Ltd. for approximately $503 million. Earlier in the week, the Kansas City, MO-based company announced that it had completed its $265 million sale of its Southeast Texas and Mid-Continent natural gas pipeline systems and natural gas and gas liquids processing assets, as well as its 50% stake in the Oasis pipeline system, to Energy Transfer Co.

Few tropical storms have packed the punch of Isidore. Despite not reaching hurricane strength, the storm, with its wide girth, heavy rain and high seas and winds, wiped out as much as 4.5 million bbl of oil and 25 Bcf of natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico last week as hordes of producers fled Gulf platforms and rigs, according to the Minerals Management Service (MMS). October futures prices soared to new 15-month highs at $3.99 last Monday before retreating to $3.686 at expiration on Thursday, and Henry Hub cash prices jumped to highs of more than $4 before slipping to $3.59 on Thursday.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) agreed to a $3 million settlement with Dynegy Inc. Tuesday, settling the first of its far-reaching investigations of energy merchants’ “round-trip” transactions. It also completed its scrutiny of a Dynegy off-balance sheet transaction.

After reaching the lowest levels since early March, the gas futures market got a boost last week from a smaller than expected storage injection and a downward revision to prior storage data on Thursday, which provided just enough steam for the September contract to end the week closer to its weekly high of $2.80 than Wednesday’s low of $2.64. However, September only managed to eke out a small 1.6-cent gain on Friday, ending the day at $2.761, just above its daily low of $2.755. Volume was light at 38,527, compared to 95,207 on Thursday.

With milder weather reaching as far as the Southeast and energy futures back on a downward slope, it was virtually inevitable that cash prices continued to slide Wednesday at nearly all points. Besides the above factors, sources said the soft market also was reflecting what some believe will be a relatively big storage injection report Thursday morning for a period covering record-setting heat and electricity demand.

Although this week’s winter siege likely was reaching its maximum area of penetration Wednesday, for the most part it had lost much of its price-boosting power. Except for big advances by Florida citygates and some citygates in the Northeast, the rest of the cash market had settled down for a generally flat performance, with scattered points showing 1 to 5 cent increases.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission may be over-reaching in trying to hone regional transmission organizations (RTO) down to “four plus one (ERCOT),” according to congressmen and witnesses before the House Energy and Air Quality subcommittee Wednesday.

The California senate rules committee Friday dropped contempt action against Enron Corp. after reaching agreement with the company on confidentiality protections for commercial documents the lawmakers are demanding. The agreement is identical to one signed with Reliant Energy earlier in the month, according to an Enron spokesperson.