Today

Nicor Inc. saw its stock price nearly cut in half Friday morning after reporting a slew of bad news, some of which also spilled over on Dynegy Inc., a joint venture partner. Nicor, long considered a stable old-line utility investment, stunned the market by reversing all of its first quarter earnings and excluding all of its second quarter earnings for a rate program used by subsidiary Nicor Gas, which contributed to a 36% drop in second quarter earnings. The board of directors in turn moved into action, appointing a special, independent committee to investigate the subsidiary’s natural gas purchases, sales, transportation and storage.

Nicor Inc. saw its stock price nearly cut in half Friday morning after reporting a slew of bad news, some of which also spilled over on Dynegy Inc., a joint venture partner. Nicor, long considered a stable old-line utility investment, stunned the market by reversing all of its first quarter earnings and excluding all of its second quarter earnings for a rate program used by subsidiary Nicor Gas, which contributed to a 36% drop in second quarter earnings. The board of directors in turn moved into action, appointing a special, independent committee to investigate the subsidiary’s natural gas purchases, sales, transportation and storage.

Market Hub Partners LP (MHP) of Houston is holding an openseason for its Copiah high-deliverability salt cavern storageproject in Copiah County, MS, today through 3 p.m. CDT Friday, May26. The facility will have 3 Bcf of capacity available and willoffer 5- to 15-day withdrawal and 15- to 30-day injection services.Customers will be able to turn capacity up to 18 times per year.Initial services will be available April 2003.

A one-day outage of the Sea Robin Processing Plant that had been set for today (see Daily GPI, March 12) was postponed until Thursday. The anticipated impact on Sea Robin Pipeline deliveries to Sabine and Columbia Gulf will remain in effect.

Pacific Gas & Electric extended a Stage 2 high-inventory OFO into a second day today, but loosened the tolerance for positive daily imbalances from zero to 2%.

Pacific Gas & Electric declared a systemwide Stage 2 high-inventory OFO for today. The tolerance for positive daily imbalances was as tight as possible at zero; the penalty for excess gas is $1/Dth.

The Senate Finance Committee meets today for a markup of a $13.5 billion energy tax package, which will likely be the only piece of the entire comprehensive energy legislation (S 1766) to go through a committee markup. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) halted a markup on the energy bill by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee last October.

El Paso Corp. shares rose 6% by mid-day today in response to slightly improved fourth quarter earnings. Higher transportation rates and lower costs on El Paso Natural Gas, as well as higher production and a favorable hedging program in the production unit, helped earnings improve to 72 cents per share for the quarter (after special charges including Coastal merger-related costs and asset impairments) compared to 65 cents per share in 4Q2000. Earnings before special items were 79 cents per share, a penny above Wall Street estimates. Net income was $375 million compared to $335 million in 4Q2000 ($408 million compared to $403 million excluding special items).

Northern Natural Gas declared a System Overrun Limitation notice for all market-area zones (ABC, D and E/F) today.