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Laclede Energy Resources said last week that it has finalized amulti-year arrangement with UtiliCorp United Inc. to provide asignificant portion of the gas supply for a 600 MW power plantcurrently under construction in Pleasant Hill, MO.

The Coastal Corp.’s Colorado Interstate Gas Co. (CIG) hasplotted a route for a lateral that will deliver gas to a planned478 MW power plant south of Colorado Springs, CO, as well asprovide for growth in gas demand along Colorado’s Front Range.

The bitter cold that cut through the Northeast last week,triggering record gas demand on distribution systems owned by SouthJersey Gas, KeySpan, Berkshire Gas, and Baltimore Gas and Electric,didn’t spare Con Edison of New York. The company said the severecold snap was responsible for record-setting gas usage as well asthe total amount of gas transported through its gas transmissionand distribution system.

Westcoast ended a force majeure late Wednesday at the Pine RiverPlant (see Daily GPI, Jan. 13) that hadcaused the curtailment of about 45 MMcf/d. A minor outage at thesmaller Highway Plant also has been resolved, Westcoast said Thursday.

Dynegy Inc. announced earlier this week that the date of itsproposed merger with Illinova Corp. has been temporarily postponedbecause certain power plant sales to El Paso Energy will takelonger to close than expected. The company had planned on finishingthe merger Jan. 4. Now, Dynegy is pushing back its projected dateof close until later in the month.

Sonat is canceling today an OFO Type 3 that was implemented Tuesdayfor seven market-area groups (see Daily GPI, Dec. 28). The pipeline also said it hadresolved mechanical problems at the Bear Creek (LA) Storage Field.

Reliant told shippers Wednesday that an Operational Alert has been lifted, so imbalance tolerances are back to normal (see Daily GPI, Dec. 21). Reliant also said it now expects an outage of the electric unit at Buckley Compressor Station north of Shreveport, LA (see Daily GPI, Dec. 14) to last through the end of February 2000.

Anticipating that high system linepack will continue through theweekend due to low gas demand and limited storage injectioncapability, Tennessee Tuesday issued an OFO Action Alert to takeeffect with Thursday’s gas day. Customers under Rate Schedules SA,LMS-PA, LMS-MA and transportation contracts not covered by abalancing agreement must keep deliveries into the system less thanor equal to scheduled quantities plus 2% (or 500 dekatherms,whichever is greater); takes from the system must be more than orequal to scheduled quantities minus 2% or 500 dekatherms. Tennesseeexpects the alert to remain in effect into the start of next week.

CMS Energy said yesterday it plans to hold an open season thatcould determine the fate of all or part of the Trunkline Pipeline.During the open season, which begins today and will end Dec. 15,the pipeline intends to determine how many customers are willing tosign long-term firm transportation agreements at full tariff ratesfor service beginning April 2000.