Turn

The Southwest Gas merger soap opera took another turn recentlyas Oneok, the former merger partner of Southwest, announced it ispursuing lawsuits against the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC),the state of Arizona and specific members of the ACC staff fortheir roles in interfering with the merger. Oneok said it iswilling to settle its claims for $85 million.

The Southwest Gas merger soap opera took another turn recentlyas Oneok, the former merger partner of Southwest, announced it ispursuing lawsuits against the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC),the state of Arizona and specific members of the ACC staff fortheir roles in interfering with the merger. Oneok said it iswilling to settle its claims for $85 million.

The assets serve all major metropolitan areas, the largest industrialload centers, and numerous natural gas trading hubs, El Paso said. Theyare also well positioned to serve many of the state’s existing and plannedgas-fired electric generation facilities. Included in the transaction are8,500 miles of natural gas transmission pipelines that transport approximately2.8 Bcf/d, nine processing plants that currently process 1.5 Bcf/d, anda 7.2 Bcf natural gas storage field. The transaction also includes significantnatural gas liquids pipelines and fractionation facilities.

It may be time for all the critics of the proposed Independence,MarketLink and Millennium expansions to pipe down. Transportationto the Northeast market from the Gulf of Mexico rocketed to$16.50/MMBtu yesterday. Gas prices at the New York City Gate onTranscontinental Gas Pipe Line jumped as high as $19/MMBtu whileHenry Hub spot prices languished in the $2.50s. Deliverabilityclearly is not as rosy as many industry experts once thought.

After holding back for 14 years, TransCanada PipeLines Ltd. isjumping into door-to-door retail sales competition – and on a scaleto match its stature as the nation’s biggest natural gastransporter and trader. TransCanada announced last week it isteaming up with department store retailer Sears Canada to make astart on a national campaign by initially selling gas toresidential consumers in Ottawa. The move by wholly-ownedsubsidiary TransCanada Energy out-classed on-going retailoperations such as Suncor Inc.’s Sunoco service station chain inOntario or pioneering efforts in central Canada by Direct EnergyMarketing of Calgary.

Claiming to be an innocent victim, TXU Energy Trading is seekinga stay of a decision ordering CNG Transmission to turn overpipeline capacity that was initially awarded to TXU toan existingpipeline shipper, who FERC found had properly exercised itsright-of-first-refusal (ROFR) for the capacity.

With its deal to acquire Poco Petroleums for $2.5 billion, Burlington Resources could be leading a charge of U.S. E&P companies heading to Canada for relatively cheap gas assets at a time when Canada is expected to play a large role in meeting strong gas demand growth.

The performance of Dynegy’s gas liquids business during thesecond quarter indicates the market is finally making aturn-around. Operating income from the liquids division grew 41% to$54.9 million, Dynegy reported. Its power marketing and generationdivision, including operating margin and equity earnings from jointventure power projects, also showed continued improvement with 28%growth in operating income to $56.8 million. But gas marketingsuffered a 31% decline in operating income to $21.8 millionprimarily because of “weak market conditions” in Europe, thecompany said. Dynegy posted a 19% increase in net income during thesecond quarter to $28 million compared with $23.4 million in 2Q98.It sold a total of 9.2 Bcf/d of gas (6.1 Bcf/d domestically), upfrom 8.2 Bcf/d in 2Q98, and sold 17.4 million MWh of power, down40% from the 28.9 million MWh sold in 2Q98. Dynegy also showed ahigh retail marketing loss of $2.4 million compared with $600,000in 2Q98 because of the expansion of its SouthStar retail marketingalliance with AGL Resources and Piedmont Natural Gas in Georgia.SouthStar markets gas under the name Georgia Natural Gas and hasbuilt one of the largest market shares in Georgia. Dynegyattributed the mounting losses to increased advertising inpreparation for the Oct. 1 deadline for retail customers to switchto buying gas from marketers.

The board of directors for the London-based InternationalPetroleum Exchange urged its members Wednesday to accept a buy-outoffer from five outside investors rather than accept a proposedmerger bid from the New York Mercantile Exchange. The 475 membersof the IPE will vote on the sale at an extraordinary generalmeeting held on July 30. The board threatened to resign if theoutside investor sale failed.