Selling

UtiliCorp United agreed to sell its West Virginia Power divisionto Allegheny Energy Inc. for $75 million in cash. In addition,separate transactions include a 20-year supply agreement forUtiliCorp’s Aquila Energy unit to provide gas to Allegheny, and anagreement for Allegheny to purchase Appalachian Electric Heating,UtiliCorp’s heating and air conditioning service operations in WestVirginia. A spokesman said details of the gas supply and otheragreements are confidential.

UtiliCorp United agreed to sell its West Virginia Power divisionto Allegheny Energy Inc. for $75 million in cash. In addition,separate transactions include a 20-year supply agreement forUtiliCorp’s Aquila Energy unit to provide gas to Allegheny, and anagreement for Allegheny to purchase Appalachian Electric Heating,UtiliCorp’s heating and air conditioning service operations in WestVirginia. A spokesman said details of the gas supply and otheragreements are confidential.

Long liquidation, that began with local selling Wednesdayafternoon, continued yesterday at the New York Mercantile Exchangeas traders sided with bearish supply figures and ignored bullishdemand predictions. The August contract tumbled 8.5 cents to $2.309and September matched that by dropping 8.6 cents to finish at$2.333.

While analysts consider Devon Energy Corp.’s planned acquisition of PennzEnergy Co. a smart move, PennzEnergy investors are smarting over what they consider too low a price.

Cautious selling was met with light, scale-down buying pressureat the New York Mercantile Exchange Friday. And when the dust hadcleared and all the orders counted, both bulls and bears couldglean something positive from the session. Bulls were quick topoint to the $2.225 settlement, a 0.7-cent advance for the day.Bears, on the other hand, touted Friday’s lower high and lower lowas an indication the downtrend was still intact. Estimated volumeof 77,538 confirmed the heavy activity in the pit.

TransCanada PipeLines Ltd. has put its Gulf Coast midstreamfacilities and its U.S. petroleum and products marketing andtrading businesses on the block, continuing to slim down to itscore transmission holdings.

The potential for selling to several gas-fired merchant powerplants in the area is what prompted Denver-based Western GasResources to enter California’s increasingly crowded natural gasmarket by getting an option to buy a Shell-Mobil gathering anddelivery system in northern California. Included in the proposeddeal that should be wrapped up by year-end are 170 miles oftwo-inch- and 10-inch-diameter pipelines crossing more than a dozenlocal gas fields between the Sacramento Airport north of thecapital and the industrialized north Contra Costa County to thesouthwest, where there are substantial existing and proposed largeindustrial loads.

TransCanada PipeLines Ltd. has put its U.S. Gulf coast midstreamfacilities andpetroleum and products marketing and tradingbusinesses on the block, continuing to slim down assets to its coretransmission holdings.

Columbia Gas Transmission said it opened a data room to provideinformation on 545 miles of small-diameter gas gathering pipelines,called the CHEWP system, and the Holbrook Storage Field, which has1.5 Bcf of total capacity in northern West Virginia andsouthwestern Pennsylvania. Anyone interested in the assets shouldmake an appointment to visit the data room in Charleston, WVA, bycalling (304) 357-2282.