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Frustration with the electric restructuring process may drivePacifiCorp to sell its service areas in California and Montana -two of the seven states where the company operates. The two statesrepresent about 76,000, or 5.5%, of PacifiCorp’s 1.4 million NorthAmerican customers.

The notion that electricity customers in high-cost states willobtain lower priced power under retail competition at the expenseof customers in low-cost states was debunked in a pipeline-backedstudy released last week.

Connecticut regulators last week issued a draft decision thattakes a mid-course review of commercial and industrial natural gasunbundling in an effort to fine-tune the state’s two-year-oldprogram. The draft also was seen as a “first step” towards possiblyachieving customer choice in the state’s residential gas marketdown the road.

Last year set a 1990s record for exploration and productioncapital spending, but the five-year trend of capital spendingincreases may end this year with the first decline since 1992.That’s one finding of Global Upstream Performance Trends, a reviewof domestic and international results for 131 publicly tradedcompanies by Arthur Andersen and John S. Herold.

Northern Indiana Public Service Co. (NIPSCO) announced it isexpanding its NIPSCO Choice program to an additional 32,000residential customers in the South Bend area this summer and willintroduce the program to Fort Wayne-area residents early next year.In addition, the number of commercial and small industrialcustomers eligible to choose alternate suppliers will increase to10,000.

FERC last week gave the go-ahead for Destin Pipeline Co. L.L.C.to build lateral pipeline facilities that would connect offshoreproduction with its new 1 Bcf/d mainline system for eventualdelivery into downstream markets.

Natural gas producers sharply criticized an electric industryproposal that seeks to resolve commercial disputes through disputeresolution as a precursor to them being filed at FERC. The aim ofthe proposed plan is to streamline the complaint process at theCommission, electric officials say.

Very few points were left trading above $2 as flat to lowernumbers dominated the cash market Wednesday. Citygates in theNortheast and Midwest (just barely) and the Appalachian pipes(again, just barely) constituted most of the $2-plus survivors,although some Louisiana points such as Henry Hub, Sonat and TranscoStation 65 recorded $2.00-even quotes at the high end of theirranges. Although quotes straddled the $2 level, Houston ShipChannel was the rare Gulf Coast point still averaging above $2.

A plea by two Enron affiliates for a limited waiver of thecapacity-release regulations and the “shipper must have title”policy is being met, at least initially, with opposition from thenatural gas industry.