Size

Kinder Morgan said it is planning to double the size of its Markham storage field in Matagorda County, TX, to serve CenterPoint Energy Gas Services and potentially other customers. The expansion, which is expected to be completed in summer 2005, would add 6 Bcf of working gas capacity, 90 MMcf/d of injection capacity and 250 MMcf/d of deliverability.

Cash numbers continued to rise at all points Wednesday, but the size of the increases was considerably less than on the day before. Small to sizeable retreats in the Midwest and South from heat levels that had been rising earlier in the week were cited as the key factor in slowing down the post-holiday rally.

TransColorado has sharply raised the proposed size of its gas pipeline expansion project to an incremental increase of 600,000 Dth/d from the previously announced 150,000 Dth/d (see Daily GPI, Jan. 22).

House negotiators conferring on broad energy legislation (H.R. 4) offered Wednesday to expand the size of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) by 10 million acres in exchange for their Senate counterparts agreeing to allow oil and natural gas drilling on a 2,000-acre “footprint” in the Alaska wilderness region.

Kinder Morgan Texas Pipeline LP, operator of a major intrastate system located in the Texas Gulf Coast, has filed an amendment to an application to construct a border-crossing pipeline to serve the expanding natural gas demand in northern Mexico.

Intricate tax transactions enabled Enron to inflate its profits by nearly $1 billion between 1995 and 2001, exaggerating the size and scope of its operations, The Washington Post reported Wednesday after obtaining internal company documents from Enron’s former top tax executive.

Two medium-size natural gas companies in the Southwest drew negative attention from the rating agencies last week, with Moody’s Investor Services reviewing Salt Lake City-based Questar Corp. for a possible downgrade and Standard & Poor’s assigning a negative outlook to Las Vegas, NV-based Southwest Gas Corp., noting its “strong, diverse and growing gas market” is offset by what S&P called “a highly political regulatory environment.”

During a year that saw fears of natural gas shortages sendprices through the roof, spurring E&P companies into frenzieddrilling, energy company shares reached a median total return of48% in 2000, according to a new report by John S. Herold, Inc., aConnecticut-based independent energy research consulting firm.

Voluntary curtailments of electrical use by some medium- tolarge-size customers was implemented Wednesday in the northern halfof California as officials and utilities continued to monitorclosely a lingering heat wave in the inland parts of the state,driving natural gas loads to the max for electric generationplants.