Well

Pacific Gas & Electric, projecting that its linepack would rise well above maximum target levels from Saturday through today, had a customer-specific OFO in place Saturday.

California’s well documented difficulties related to electric restructuring and a sluggish response from consumers to retail electric competition in key parts of the country have not deterred most U.S. electric utilities from continuing to pursue competitive retail plans. The situation has not kept several states from moving forward with restructuring efforts, according to an industry analysis by Chartwell in its new publication, Competition in the Energy Industry, 2001, which was unveiled last week.

May’s tenure as prompt month in the natural gas pit has not gone all that well for the bulls. Although there have been good days when prices ratcheted higher, most of the month has been a downer as prices tumbled from the $5.74 high — notched on April’s expiration day — down to beneath the $5.00 level Wednesday. It was only fitting that the May contract continued to slump on its expiration day Thursday. At the closing bell, the May contract limped off the board at $4.891, down 9 cents for the day and a whopping 84.9 cents off its March 28 high.

California’s well documented difficulties related to electric restructuring and a sluggish response from consumers to retail electric competition in key parts of the country have not deterred most U.S. electric utilities from continuing to pursue competitive retail plans. Nor has it kept several states from moving forward with restructuring efforts, according to an industry analysis by Chartwell included in its new publication, Competition in the Energy Industry, 2001.

The current pace of power plant construction could very well lead to the elimination of generation capacity shortages in practically every U.S. regional power market over the next one to three years, according to a new study recently completed by ICF Consulting.

First quarter profits for Tucson-based UniSource Energy Corp. are expected to come in well ahead of analysts’ estimates because of strong retail and wholesale sales by subsidiary Tucson Electric Power Co. TEP’s retail and wholesale sales rose 3% in January and 8% in February over a year ago. The company expects earnings to be between 50 cents and 60 cents a share for the first quarter, up from First Call/Thomson Financial estimates of 23 cents per share. In the first two months of 2000, retail sales were 1.14 million MWh and wholesale sales were 945,000 MWh. TEP revenues also increased, in particular wholesale revenues. Higher regional wholesale revenue contributed more than 50% of TEP’s operating revenues for the first two months of this year, compared with 24% of operating revenues for the same period of 2000. UniSource plans to release its earnings the week of April 23. Along with its earnings announcement, the company also plans to provide revised earnings guidance for the remainder of 2001. Previously, UniSource said earnings for 2001 would be at least $1.45 per share.

The current pace of power plant construction could very well lead to the elimination of generation capacity shortages in practically every U.S. regional power market over the next one to three years, according to a new study recently completed by ICF Consulting.

First quarter profits for Tucson-based UniSource Energy Corp. are expected to come in well ahead of analysts’ estimates because of strong retail and wholesale sales by subsidiary Tucson Electric Power Co. TEP’s retail and wholesale sales rose 3% in January and 8% in February over a year ago.

With linepack threatening to soar well above its maximum targetlevels later this week, Pacific Gas & Electric widenedTuesday’s customer-specific OFO into a systemwide Stage 3high-inventory OFO today. The OFO has penalties of $5/Dth forpositive daily imbalances exceeding a stringent 1% tolerance.