Rush

While the Southern California border stepped up its headlongrush to rejoin the overall gas market and the other two Californiapoints saw big losses, all other points experienced only mildsoftness Wednesday. Only Texas Eastern-Kosciusko and two Northeastpoints (into Algonquin and Iroquois Zone 2) fell more than a dimeamong the non-California markets.

Starting 2001 with a rush of activity, Burlington Resources (BR)announced that it has entered into separate agreements totalingapproximately $385 million with Petrobank Energy and Resources Ltd.and ATCO Gas for properties in the Western Canadian SedimentaryBasin with combined net proved and net probable reserves of 497Bcfe. The company also reported that it raised its net income from$1 million for the full year 1999, to $675 million for the fullyear 2000.

The rush is on to build new pipeline capacity to serve rapidgas-fired power generation growth in the Southeast and Mid-Atlanticregions. Dominion Transmission last week announced a proposed $400million pipeline to serve primarily new power plants in Virginiaand North Carolina.

The furious upward rush of swing cash prices finally ran out ofsteam Tuesday, leaving most of the market in a consolidation andstabilization mode. Except for a nickel rise in Transco’s Zone6-NYC pool and milder increases on several Midcontinent pipes, flatnumbers were the order of the day at nearly all eastern points.Although the Midwest and Northeast market areas had cooled off abit since Monday, forecasts for a heat wave to re-intensify laterthis week kept prices from retreating, a marketer said.

The rush to build new gas-fired generation has become nothingless than a frenzy, according to a new report which shows thatsince summer the tally on new generation projects has grown 61% to59,000 MW. That’s up from 49,463 MW reported in late-September, and36,600 MW in July, said Resource Data International’s (RDI) EnergyInsight (EI), an Internet-based analytical service that keeps aclose watch on the power generation market.

The perception that there is no need to “rush” natural gasunbundling and customer choice has prevailed in Californiafollowing actions by the state legislature and energy regulators.That allows the major investor-owned gas utilities to prepare formore competition and gain more experience in wide-rangingsettlements that they negotiated with their major suppliers,shippers and marketers.