Today

For the second week in a row, Pacific Gas & Electricdeclared an unusual weekday low-inventory OFO. The order, effectivetoday, carries $1/dth penalties for negative imbalances exceeding10%.

Pacific Gas & Electric continued a low-inventory OFO begunWednesday (see Daily GPI, Aug. 25)through today with no change in imbalance tolerance orpenalties. PG&E extended a projection of below-target linepacklevels through Saturday.

Pacific Gas & Electric issued a systemwide high-inventoryOFO effective today. The order carries penalties of $1/Dth forpositive imbalances exceeding a tolerance of 11%. The utilityprojected that high linepack (200 MMcf greater than target) wouldlast through Sunday.

NiSource is taking its $68/share offer ($5.6 billion) directlyto Columbia Energy Group shareholders today and said it has filedlitigation against Columbia and its directors in the DelawareChancery Court in an attempt to gain an opportunity to nominate adirector to fill a vacant seat on Columbia’s board. The seat wasvacated in May when one of Columbia’s directors retired, butColumbia failed to call for a shareholder vote on a replacement atits annual meeting last month, NiSource said.

A high-inventory Stage 1 OFO implemented Sunday by Pacific Gas& Electric was continued through Monday and today. Sunday’s 15%imbalance tolerance was reduced to 6% Monday, but the noncompliancepenalty remains at $1/dth. PG&E projected that its linepackinventory would continue to be 200 MMcf or more above the utility’starget through Thursday.

With the amount of capital driving today’s energy companies,Statoil Energy recently announced it is searching for a partner tobolster its resource base. A spokesman for the Virginia-basedenergy marketer said the process is moving quickly and the companyhopes to find a partner by the end of the year.

As the countdown to today’s May futures expiry continuedTuesday, swing cash prices certainly did their part to encouragethe bulls in Nymex’s trading pit. But in a form of reciprocatingsupport, sources said late-April price rises of about a dime inmost markets were based almost solely on screen upticks Monday andTuesday. Except for moderate air conditioning load in Texas and theSoutheast and a bit of lingering chill in the West, weatherfundamentals were almost non-existent, they said.

With the amount of capital driving today’s energy companies,Statoil Energy recently announced it is searching for a partner tobolster its resource base. A spokesman for the Virginia-basedenergy marketer said the process is moving quickly and the companyhopes to have found a partner by the end of the year.

Pacific Gas & Electric issued a low-inventory Stage 1 OFOfor today carrying penalties of $1/dth for negative imbalancesexceeding 5% of scheduled volumes.