Systems

Just as Tropical Storm Bret was being downgraded to a drenchingrain event for South Texas the natural gas futures market wasundergoing a downgrading of its own yesterday, as traders tookprofits in a mid-morning sell-off. However, by mid-afternoon theNational Hurricane Center had anointed the latest two tropicaldepressions-Dennis and Emily-into tropical storms and that wasenough to convince those sellers to become buyers. That was almostenough to recoup the earlier price decline, leaving the Septembercontract to finish the session with only a half-cent loss to$3.059.

Shareholders for Commonwealth Energy Systems and BEC Energy votedto approve their companies’ previously announced merger plans lastweek. The merger was first agreed to last December (See Daily GPI, Dec. 8, 1998). The new companywill be named NSTAR.

Avista Corp. affiliate Avista Power and STEAG AG, Germany’slargest independent power producer agreed to form a joint ventureto develop, build and/or buy electric generation assets throughoutNorth America. Initial regions of interest include the Northwest,the Southwest and the Southeast. Projects of interest include thosepowered by natural gas, coal and hydro.

Due to one of the largest storage systems in the country andgenerally low gas prices, East Ohio Gas said Monday that itscustomers will achieve 16% in gas cost savings over the next threemonths compared to the same time last year. Officials for theutility said that its customers will be charged a rate of $3.28 perMcf for the next three months, compared to $3.89 Mcf over the sameperiod in 1998.

Extreme cold, with both gas heating customers and electric powercustomers pulling on gas supplies, pushed demand on Pacific Gas& Electric’s gas system from 3 Bcf/d to 4.5 Bcf/d Monday,sending the California ISO into an emergency alert situation andforcing the cut-off of some interruptible power contracts.

Duke Energy Field Services has agreed to purchase percentageinterests in several non-regulated natural gas gathering systemsand processing plants from subsidiaries of ONEOK Inc., and hascommitted to build a natural gas processing plant with ONEOK insouthern Oklahoma.

Advanced turbine systems (ATS), including microturbines, andfuel cells, took the top dollars in the Department of Energyresearch, development and demonstration budget for FY99, accordingto a budget assessment by the American Gas Association. Overall,AGA estimated DOE’s research funding for natural gas set a newrecord at $246 million. That’s up from the $209 million in thisyear’s budget.

Pipelines now have an extra year to get interactive websites andelectronic data interchange systems in place, FERC said in a finalrule on the matter yesterday. The rule extends the deadline to June1, 2000. The order requires pipelines to provide a communicationssystem consisting of interactive Internet websites and EDI.

Dynegy Inc. (formerly NGC Corp.) sold its Haynesville, LA, gasprocessing and fractionation facility and related gas and gasliquids pipeline systems to Duke Energy Field Services. The sale ofthe non-strategic asset continues the rationalization of certaingas processing plants acquired from Trident and Chevron, which hasresulted in greater operating efficiencies and lower costs, Dynegysaid.