Reviews

The cure and the illness in California’s electricity crisisshared the spotlight Wednesday as the state finished its whirlwind27-hour, sealed-bid power auction and the state’s third majorinvestor-owned utility appealed to state regulators for a five-yearsurcharge and a $100 million cash-conservation program to avoid thefinancial torpor of its two larger fellows private-sectorutilities.

Independent power marketers are opposed to any extension of theCalifornia Independent System Operator’s (Cal-ISO) purchase pricecap authority, saying it would give the Cal-ISO “unfettered”control over wholesale electric market prices in the state. Butinvestor-owned utility, Southern California Edison, and theCalifornia Power Exchange (Cal-PX) see an upside to the Cal-ISO’srequest.

After successfully completing a non-binding open season on Sept.21, for the Western Frontier project, Williams’ gas pipeline unitplans to hold a binding open season in the near future to gauge theexact market interest in the project that would transport gassupply from the Rockies to the mid-continent region.

After successfully completing a non-binding open season on Sept.21, for the Western Frontier project, Williams’ gas pipeline unitplans to hold a binding open season in the near future to gauge theexact market interest in the project that would transport gassupply from the Rockies to the mid-continent region.

A group of natural gas producers has called on FERC to step in and settle once and for all the controversial issue of re-designing the capacity-allocation procedures of El Paso Natural Gas so that “firm” capacity on El Paso would really come to mean firm, and the practice of overbooking firm primary transportation capacity would become history at the pipeline’s SoCal/Topock delivery point into California.

Eastern Enterprises stock price jumped more than 10% yesterdayto $43.62/share on news it is evaluating strategic alternativesthat could include share repurchases, joint ventures or a sale ofall or part of the company.

Can you trust a marketer with all of your regulated assets? It’sa question many LDCs are asking themselves these days asderegulation and competition are stranding more and more supplycontracts, upstream transportation and storage. But there’s no easyanswer, according to several panelists speaking at NGI’sGasMart/Power ’99 in Dallas last week.

Can you trust a marketer with all of your regulated assets? It’sa question many LDCs are asking themselves these days asderergulation and competition are stranding more and more supplycontracts, upstream transportation and storage. But there’s no easyanswer, according to several panelists speaking at GasMart/Power’99 in Dallas yesterday.

Exxon and Mobil said yesterday they expect antitrust reviews oftheir proposed $88 billion merger will be completed by the end ofthe third quarter. The companies filed the formal pre-mergernotification with the European Commission on May 3. Under the EC’sregulatory framework, that process should be completed around theend of September. As a result of discussions with the Federal TradeCommission, the companies believe that the FTC process can becompleted in the same time period. Shareholders of both companiesare scheduled to vote on the deal on May 27.