Republished

Despite severe reservations from powerful marketers, such asEnron and Shell Energy Services, SB 601 was introduced to thePennsylvania legislature last week, moving residential and smallcommercial gas customers one step closer to gas supply choice. Thenext step for the bill, which supporters said was the result of aworking collaborative of marketers, LDCs, and the PennsylvaniaPublic Utilities Commission (PUC), will come March 23, when theSenate Consumer Protection committee will hold a hearing on thebill.

California’s chief energy regulator, at a critical juncture in ayear-long study of the state natural gas industry’s marketconditions, says he is not sure he will support extensiveunbundling or divestiture on the gas side.

CMS Energy settled Federal Trade Commission charges on Fridaythat threaten to hold up its acquisition of Panhandle Eastern andTrunkline Pipeline from Duke Energy. The FTC charged the purchasewould limit pipeline competition in 54 counties in Michigan. Thesettlement allows CMS to close the deal basically unchanged, but itdid delay the closing by many weeks, a CMS official said.

Attempting to gain access to a potentially plentiful Gulf ofMexico gas supply, KeySpan Exploration &amp Production announcedTuesday it agreed with Houston Exploration Co.to jointly drilland develop 55 leases in the Gulf’s outer continental shelf. The$300 million agreement has an effective date of Jan. 1, 1999.

Dynegy recently announced construction plans for two separate500 MW facilities in the Southeast, making a reality of its promiseto increase its power asset portfolio in the area. With thesefacilities, one located in Heard County, GA and the other locatedin Oldham County, KY, Dynegy will increase its Southeast energyassets from three to five.

Texas moved a step closer to a restructured electricitymarketplace last week when the state Senate approved a bill toderegulate electric utilities. The bill is now bound for the StateAffairs Committee of the House of Representatives. Hearings couldbe held as early as March 29. Gov. George W. Bush has voiced hissupport for electric deregulation.

Public Service Co. of New Mexico (PNM) said it embarked on a$17.3 million stock repurchase plan last week after announcing theNew Mexico Supreme Court rejected a $112 million rate cut imposedby the state’s outgoing Public Utility Commission (PUC) late lastyear.

Washington attorney Katherine B. Edwards is among the candidatesbeing eyed by the Natural Gas Supply Association (NGSA) to succeedformer President Nicholas J. Bush, who departed the trade grouplast month amid allegations that he defrauded it of more than $2.4million, sources say.

Burlington Resources has joined forces with Enron Capital &ampTrade Resources Corp. in a gas gathering partnership that willserve the Wind River Basin in Wyoming, where processing andtransportation constraints have held back production in recentyears. The two companies have formed Lost Creek Gathering Co.L.L.C. to build a new 124-mile, 24-inch diameter wet gas gatheringheader from the Madden Field in central Wyoming to a processingplant located near Wamsutter, WY.