Venture

Enron Corp. has eliminated the last vestiges of its one-timehigh-profile venture into California’s residential electricitymarket by pulling out of its deal with the resort city of PalmSprings. Enron was the energy service provider for a citygovernment-established aggregation business, which had about 2,000mostly residential customers lured away from the local monopolyprovider, Southern California Edison.

Enron Corp. has eliminated the last vestiges of its one-timehigh-profile venture into California’s residential electricitymarket by pulling out of its deal with the resort city of PalmSprings. Enron was the energy service provider for a citygovernment-established aggregation business, which had about 2,000mostly residential customers lured away from the local monopolyprovider, Southern California Edison.

The Palmetto Pipeline, a proposed joint venture between CarolinaPower & Light (CP&L) and Sonat, announced an open seasonMonday seeking interest from potential firm gas transportationservice customers for terms of at least 20 years. The open seasonbegan April 1 and will continue through May 31.

Thunder Creek Gas Services LLC, a joint venture of Devon EnergyCorp. and KN Energy, has begun construction of a 126-mile gasgathering system in the Powder River Basin of northeast Wyoming.The system is expected to be operational by fall at a total cost ofabout $100 million.

East Breaks Gathering Co., a new joint venture between LeviathanGas Pipeline, ANR Pipeline Co., and Natural Gas Pipeline Co. ofAmerica, said last week it is taking part in a $1.2 billion Gulf ofMexico joint development project between Amoco and Exxon. EastBreaks has agreed to build, operate and service a new pipelineextending from Amoco and Exxon’s western Gulf facility to aninterconnect that feeds ANR’s pipeline. Construction of the newpipeline and the producer’s deep-water drilling facility isexpected to be finished in mid-2000. Estimated reserves in the areawere not disclosed.

General Electric (GE) announced Thursday it has entered into ajoint venture with Plug Power, a Latham NY-based company dedicatedto the development and manufacturing of fuel cells, to market fuelcells worldwide. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Thetwo companies will combine efforts to form a new company called GEFuel Cell Systems. GE will own 75% of the new company, with PlugPower owning the rest. GE also acquired 10% of Plug Power ownershipin the deal.

Calpine Corp. of San Jose, CA, and North Dartmouth-MA basedEnergy Management Inc. formed a new power marketing joint venture,Calpine/EMI Marketing, LLC, which will sell power and transmissioncapacity in New England from new generation facilities in theregion.

Southern Company Energy Marketing – the marketing joint ventureof Southern Company unit Southern Energy and Vastar Resources’Vastar Gas Marketing and Vastar Power Marketing — plans to movesome of its Houston employees, mainly traders, to its Atlantaoffice.

Southern Company Energy Marketing – the marketing joint ventureof Southern Company unit Southern Energy and Vastar Resources’Vastar Gas Marketing and Vastar Power Marketing – plans to movesome of its Houston employees, mainly traders, to its Atlantaoffice.