Supporting

The four Northwest governors recently sent a joint letter to the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) supporting BPA’s actions to avoid huge, wholesale rate increases and resulting damage to the Northwest region’s economy.

The 800-mile Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline took the stagelast week, but its supporting cast, the Sable Offshore EnergyProject, couldn’t make the show. After running the regulatory andpolitical gauntlet north of the border, the pipeline has been lefthanging by producers, who are more than a week away from initialdeliveries.

The Public Utility Commission of Ohio (PUCO) filed a statementwith the federal Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)supporting the merger of Dominion Resources Inc. and ConsolidatedNatural Gas Co. The PUCO told the SEC that the agency wouldcontinue to exercise jurisdiction over the regulated activities ofThe East Ohio Gas Co., CNG’s gas distribution company in Ohio, andthat the merger would have no impact on its ability to protect theinterests of Ohio ratepayers. The PUCO’s approval is not needed,but the commission conducted a review at the request of East OhioGas.

The national heat wave continued through Friday into theweekend, and electric utilities continued to use appeals forcustomer conservation and other demand-side management tools tokeep juice flowing as needed. But the heavy cooling load lost itsability to keep cash gas prices moving higher. Instead, most pointswere about a dime or more down in flows for the last day of July,and although quotes for Sunday and Monday tended to surpass thosefor Saturday, they still were below monthly indexes. Sources citedthe usual drop in weekend demand, a small screen decrease andforecasts that major market areas will have cooled off a bit bytoday as reasons for the softness.

The dam supporting natural gas futures prices finally burstThursday. After successfully fighting back numerous attempts tofall below major support at $2.11 the last several weeks, the JuneNymex contract succumbed to major selling by funds yesterday, andsettled the day down 10.2 cents to $2.067. Volume was extremelyheavy, with an estimated 93,072 contracts changing hands.

Three members of the Wisconsin Legislature told FERC this weekthey would not be supporting the Viking Voyageur project unlesssignificant safety and evironmental modifications were made.Included among the modifications are thicker pipeline in ruralareas rather than just urban areas, automatic or remote shutoffvalves every five miles rather than the planned manual shut-offvalves every 20 miles, use of technology that minimizes the noisecreated by the Hancock Compressor Station, additional pipelineprotection at certain locations so large trucks can be driven overthe line, placement of the line away from residential and schoolareas in Wautoma, routing across farmland in a way that does notimpact irrigation or drainage, and giving property owners the rightto decide where the pipeline should be placed.