Sees

Change in the electric industry will mirror what took place inthe gas industry following deregulation and the introduction ofcompetition, particularly with regard to trading, Enron PresidentJeffrey K. Skilling told attendees at Ernst & Young LLP’s ninthannual Energy Conference in Houston Tuesday.

Because of the size of the power industry, electric companieswill own the gas industry within the next decade, according to anofficial of Engage Energy. Of the 300 LDCs and about 110investor-owned utilities remaining in the country, roughly 100 willbe remaining at the end of the next decade, said David Pruner ofEngage Energy in Houston. The top-50 IOUs will control almost 80%of the entire energy market, he said at the DOE-NARUC natural gasconference in Pittsburgh yesterday.

Cash prices continued to act like rampaging bulls as Octoberbegan Thursday. Double-digit increases of between 10 and 20 centswere the order of the day almost across the board as traders notedchilly weather in major northern market areas and the fact thatGulf of Mexico production, while nearly back to normal afterhurricane outages, still was missing a few hundred MMcf/d. At leasttwo big processing plants in southeast Louisiana remained shut downdue to storm damage. Cash also built on Wednesday’s big screenrun-up and initially higher futures prices Thursday. Even theNovember contract eventually wound up with a small loss, a traderpointed out.

The Canadian natural-gas community sees potentially sharp priceincreases developing on its horizon, thanks to a happy coincidenceof pipeline expansions and economic conditions on the supply side.As the Alliance Pipeline accepted its final certificate for itsU.S. leg from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, risingprices were being predicted by prominent fixtures ranging fromPeters &amp Co., an investment boutique specializing in energystocks, to the dean of Canadian geological and engineeringconsulting houses, Sproule Associates.

The Canadian natural-gas community sees potentially sharp priceincreases developing on its horizon, thanks to a happy coincidenceof pipeline expansions and economic conditions on the supply side.As the Alliance Pipeline accepted its final certificate for itsU.S. leg from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, risingprices were being predicted by prominent fixtures ranging fromPeters & Co., an investment boutique specializing in energystocks, to the dean of Canadian geological and engineeringconsulting houses, Sproule Associates.

The Natural Gas Supply Association said it expects an additional200 Bcf/year of incremental gas demand growth by 2005 from theEnvironmental Protection Agency’s new more competitive standardsfor NOx emissions from new power generation boilers. EPAAdministrator Carol Browner signed the final rule, Utility BoilerNox New Source Performance Standards (NSPS), last week.

Venture capitalist Oliver Curme is looking for big things fromAltra Energy Technologies. Last year the company in which he’s apartner, Battery Ventures, bought a majority stake in Altra, whichoffers real-time electronic trading of energy. “I put $10 millionof my company’s money into Altra Energy Technologies,” he toldattendees at Zeus Development’s Interactive Energy conference inHouston earlier this week. “I believe, like many of you do, thatthere’s a gold mine to be made in interactive energy, and I put mymoney where my mouth is. In fact, my neck is really stretched onaccount of my belief to the tune of $10 million. But Altra’s areally great company. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a winner.”

Gas pipeline industry lobbyists are missing out on an excellentopportunity in the power generation market to promote greaterexpansion of the pipeline network, says Commissioner Brent Alderferof the Colorado Public Utlities Commission. And the power industryas well is overlooking the importance of gas pipelines indistributed generation in creating greater power reliability.

The proposal of Columbia Gas Transmission and Columbia GulfTransmission calling for FERC to allow the negotiation of terms andconditions of pipeline services would provide a “usefulimplementation tool for enactment of a generic program,” theAmerican Gas Association says.