Representatives

The House of Representatives last week approved legislation toestablish a multi-million federal loan-guarantee program to helpindependent oil and natural gas producers recover from the effectsof depressed crude oil prices. The measure, which was approved bythe Senate in June, is now headed to President Clinton for hissignature.

Shareholders for both El Paso Energy and Sonat Inc. announcedoverwhelming approval of the two companies’ proposed mergerThursday. For Sonat, representatives for 86% of the company’soutstanding shares voted in a special shareholders’ meeting, andthe merger was approved by 98%. El Paso Energy’s stockholders alsoapproved the merger at a meeting held Thursday. Out of 93 millionEl Paso shares that voted, 95% voted in favor of the merger. Underthe terms of the $6 billion agreement, which was announced in March(see Daily GPI, March 16), Sonat stockholders will receive oneshare of El Paso Energy common stock for each share of Sonat commonstock exchanged in the merger. El Paso will issue 110 millioncommon shares to complete the transaction after the deal closes.Sonat said it expects the regulatory reviews of the proposed mergerto be completed during the third or fourth quarter of this year.

Canadian business and government energy representatives assureda Washington audience last week that the immense Canadian reservesand strong market ties between the U.S. and Canada spell long-termsupply security for U.S. consumers.

Representatives of the major utility industries, natural gas,electricity and telecommunications, met in Houston this week tojointly address Y2K issues. Gary Gardner, chief information officerof the American Gas Association (AGA) cited interlocking activitiesas the basis for the meeting. For instance electricity powers manyof the pipeline compressor stations that keep the natural gasflowing. “Although gas companies have manual overrides that can beused in the event of an electrical power shortage or outage, fieldpersonnel posted at the compressor stations will rely ontelecommunications devices to communicate with their headquarters.

The anticipated election of Rep. Robert Livingston (R-LA) as thenext speaker of the House of Representatives could be very good forthe natural gas and oil industries.