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Sempra Energy shared its vision of the future with industryanalysts last week saying the key to earnings growth lies withunregulated businesses. The company’s goal of growing earnings pershare by 8 to 10% on a compound annual average basis over the nextfour years means it will be looking less and less like a utility.

Sempra Energy shared its vision of the future with industryanalysts last week and said the key to earnings growth lies withunregulated businesses. The company’s goal of growing earnings pershare by 8 to 10% on a compound annual average basis over the nextfour years means it will be looking less and less like a utility.

Reliant Energy’s increased focus on the non-regulated side ofthe energy business has apparently made the former pipeline anddistribution assets of NorAm Energy no longer attractive to thecompany. Reliant said last week it hired an investment banking firmto evaluate strategic alternatives for two of its gas distributioncompanies and its gas pipeline operations.

Reliant Energy’s increased focus on the non-regulated side ofthe energy business has apparently made the former pipeline anddistribution assets of subsidiary NorAm Energy no longer attractiveto the company. Reliant said last week it hired an investmentbanking firm to evaluate strategic alternatives for two of its gasdistribution companies and its gas pipeline operations.

Except for the Rockies and Pacific Northwest, fundamentalsremained kind of on the wimpy side in most markets Monday. However,going on the theory that a bird in the bush (weather forecast) isworth more than two or three in the hand (current conditions),traders sent prices higher by about a dime or more at most points.Although the screen provided a smidgen of support with a gain ofslightly over 6 cents, sources agreed that a new forecast for muchcolder temperatures than anything seen previously was the mainfactor in rising cash prices.

Due to an unforeseen pipe replacement, Algonquin GasTransmission will be working on the 30″ mainline pipe on thesuction side of the Hanover Compressor Station. Work is scheduledto begin Wednesday and continue through Wednesday, Nov. 10.Additional station work will take place during the outage.Algonquin said it does not expect any capacity restrictions at thistime. Updates will be posted to the company’s bulletin board.

For the second day in a row the futures market probed to eitherside of unchanged yesterday as local traders attempted to influencethe market-first higher, then lower-in choppy, range-bound trading.But for the second day in a row they received little or no helpfrom other market participants, and thus were forced to cover intheir positions before the close. That enabled the October contractto drift quietly lower Monday, closing down 2 cents to $2.781.Estimated volume of 74,785 was well below Friday’s impressive114,000 figure.

Fearing the potential side effects of waivers on the interstatemarket, FERC last week decided to give Atlanta Gas Light (AGL) onlya short-term extension of its waivers to Commission regulations topreserve the “status quo” of retail gas unbundling in Georgia whileit explores other non-waiver solutions for utilities.

The magical 30 Tcf annual natural gas market goal is very much arealistic prospect on the demand side, but much more problematicfrom a U.S. supply perspective, according representatives of largeand small producers addressing a national meeting of stateregulators this week.