Tuesday

San Jose, CA-based Calpine Corp. continued its buying/buildingspree Tuesday, acquiring 205 Bcf of natural gas reserves in threedifferent North American locations for $206 million, bringing theaggressive merchant electric generating plantdeveloper/owner/operator’s portfolio of total proved serves to 430Bcf. The move followed Monday’s announcement of Second quarterearnings increase of 176%, compared to 2Q of last year, and a new$2.5 billion revolving credit facility with a consortium of banksto pay for Calpine’s large portfolio of power projects in theUnited States

One of California’s two newest energy regulators Tuesdayadvocated that the state re-regulate parts of its restructuredelectric industry and re-establish some power he said it has cededin the process to the federal government. The plea was part of apress conference in San Diego designed to assuage concernedelectricity customers whose bills have doubled and tripled due to asummer peak-load price and supply crunch.

Two U.S. energy giants with divergent approaches to overseasinvestments cut a deal announced Tuesday with Dominion Resources,Inc., continuing to sell off its foreign investments and SempraEnergy continuing to expand its plays out of the country. Semprapaid $145 million in cash for Dominion’s 21.5% interest in holdingcompanies for natural gas distribution companies in central andsouthern Argentina and a 25% interest in the parent company for aBuenos Aires electric utility.

Two U.S. energy giants with divergent approaches to overseasinvestments cut a deal announced Tuesday with Dominion Resources,Inc., continuing to sell off its foreign investments and SempraEnergy continuing to expand its plays out of the country. Semprapaid $145 million in cash for Dominion’s 21.5% interest in holdingcompanies for natural gas distribution companies in central andsouthern Argentina and a 25% interest in the parent company for aBuenos Aires electric utility.

The Fourth of July may have been last Tuesday, but pyrotechnicscontinued for the rest of the week in the natural gas pit astraders pushed prices lower Wednesday in sympathy with a 6% drop incrude oil prices, only to retrace a portion of those losses in ashort-covering buying spree Friday.

Nominations exceeded capacity at NOVA’s Eastern Gate Tuesday,causing a restriction of about 270 MMcf/d, or 46% of IT capability.

To curb growing linepack, NOVA changed its daily imbalancetolerance range to +2%/-18% at noon Tuesday.

Enron Energy Services continues its quest to shore up energymanagement agreements with as many customers as it can. On theheels of Tuesday’s announcement that it had signed a 10-yearagreement with Prudential Insurance of America, the Enron Corp.subsidiary announced yesterday that it had pocketed a $1 billion,10-year energy agreement with the U.S. facilities of QuebecorWorld, the world’s largest commercial printer. The agreementexpands Enron’s original $250 million five-year contract with WorldColor Press, signed in 1998. World Color Press was purchased byQuebecor Printing Inc. last August.

Led by heavy buying interest in winter months, natural gasfutures continued to defy gravity yesterday as traders bid themarket up for the seventh straight session. June finished up 5.2cents at $3.448, but the real story was the Nov-Mar. strip, whichnotched an impressive 7.3-cent gain to close at $3.613.