Trade

Enron Capital and Trade Resources currently is negotiating adeal with a Lincoln, NE-based nonprofit joint power agency to sellit wholesale bulk, multi-year gas supplies so the agency can inturn sell them at below-market prices to municipal utilities inCalifornia and other states. Brokered through the American PublicEnergy Agency (APEA), supplies would be paid for in advance atdiscounted prices using the APEA tax-exempt financing capability.

CMS Energy settled charges from the Federal Trade CommissionFriday that its acquisition of Panhandle Eastern and TrunklinePipeline limited competition for natural gas in 54 counties inMichigan. The settlement allows CMS to close the deal basicallyunchanged, but it did delay the closing by many weeks, a CMSofficial said.

Enron Capital and Trade Resources currently is negotiating adeal with a Lincoln, NE-based nonprofit joint power agency to sellit wholesale bulk, multi-year gas supplies so the agency can inturn sell them at below-market prices to municipal utilities inCalifornia and other states. Brokered through the American PublicEnergy Agency (APEA), supplies would be paid-for in advance atdiscounted prices using the APEA tax-exempt financing capability.

Retail gas unbundling in California is “currently beingundermined” by Dynegy Marketing and Trade’s withholding of asignificant portion of firm transportation capacity on El PasoNatural Gas from the market, the head of the California PublicUtilities Commission (CPUC) said last week. As a remedy, CPUCPresident Richard A. Bilas called on FERC to implement regulationsprohibiting the “hoarding” of pipeline capacity and to investigateallegations of anticompetitive conduct, which he contends wasevident in the Dynegy-El Paso arrangement.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) approved a NewYork Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) application to trade electricityfutures and options based on delivery at the Pennsylvania-NewJersey-Maryland (PJM) western hub.

The futures market was perched at a precarious position cominginto trading Monday. Last week’s precipitous decline had positionedthe spot February contract near its all-time low of $1.77, leavingsome traders to suggest that Monday’s price action could dictatethe course of trading for the rest of the week. A move below $1.77could open the door for fresh selling, while a rebound above $1.77might prompt short covering. And although Monday’s move below the$1.77 level did not entice the cascade of selling some expected, itdid signify that the bears are not finished yet. February endeddown 5.1 cents to $1.779 after trading to a $1.74 low.

Enron Capital & Trade Resources Corp. (ECT) chose IONATechnologies’ Orbix and OrbixTalk products for real-time energytrading. The new trading system, which enables Enron traders tocapture and process complex deals, currently supports natural gastrading and later will be extended to support electricity and otherenergy commodities. ECT’s trading system, called Sitara, alsoallows traders to perform real-time portfolio and positionmanagement. The new system has been deployed in Houston and will bedeployed worldwide.

British Petroleum (BP) and Amoco Corp. said they will completetheir merger today after receiving Federal Trade Commission (FTC)approval yesterday for the $57 billion deal. To win FTC approval,the companies agreed to free up more than 1,600 gas stations in 30southeastern and midwestern markets and to divest nine petroleumterminals. The 4-0 vote in favor of the merger becomes final aftera 60-day comment period.

Three of the four leading natural gas trade associations onFriday were said to be either definitely on board or “favorablyinclined” to jointly ask FERC for a second extension of thedeadline for industry comments on the major notice of proposedrulemaking (NOPR) and notice of inquiry (NOI) issued in July[RM98-10, RM98-12]. A source indicated there was a “50-50 chance”the lone association holdout would sign on too. The joint request,which reportedly is being spear-headed by the Interstate NaturalGas Association of America (INGAA), would seek a six-monthextension of the current Jan. 22nd deadline, and could be filed atthe Commission as early as this week. A possible reason for themove is that one of the groups is trying to buy time to broker acompromise with the other three associations on a voluntary auctionproposal, the source said. This would make pipeline participationin capacity auctioning optional, as opposed to the mandatory routethat FERC seems to favor.