Troubles

Williams’ once mighty pipeline empire has been decimated by the corporation’s financial troubles and its executive personnel have been cut as well, according to a notice appearing Tuesday on the Northwest Pipeline electronic bulletin board.

Under intense questioning from an unfriendly House subcommittee Thursday, Enron Corp.’s former CEO Jeffrey Skilling denied knowing that the controversial off-the-book partnerships that led to the company’s collapse were intended to hide debt and boost earnings.

As a clear signal that the state legislature still wants to weigh in with a broad-based settlement to California’s electricity crisis, state regulators Tuesday canceled a special meeting to vote on suspending direct access retail competition at the urging of state officials, including the Department of Water Resources (DWR), which is buying all of the power for financially crippled private sector utilities. The California Public Utilities Commission will reconsider the issue in mid-August, the drop-dead deadline for a legislative solution that will prevent a second major utility from falling into bankruptcy.

Legal troubles for the once high-flying Avista Corp. continue toadd up, as federal investigators have begun looking into possibleenergy futures trading rule violations that may have occurred twoyears ago at a Houston subsidiary.

Despite the numerous troubles that have plagued the deregulated Georgia retail gas market since its inception in 1997, Georgia Public Service Commissioner Bobby Baker said yesterday in an interview that other states need to realize business-related matters rather than regulatory and legislative snafus were primarily to blame for the difficulties.

The financial troubles of Coho Energy reached a new level lastweek as the Dallas-based company received a formal notice from itslenders that the obligations under its $240 million credit facilityhave been accelerated and the lenders intend to exercise all rightsand remedies to satisfy those obligations.