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North American exploration and production in 2000 will be nearlyall about gas and all about independents, with spending plans ofthe majors largely forsaking this country for opportunitiesoverseas. That’s one finding of Lehman Brothers, which from Nov. 6to Dec. 10 surveyed 320 companies in what it calls “the mostextensive study of oil company spending plans that has ever beendone.”

El Paso will take the Dutch Flat #1 turbine down for maintenanceDec. 20-22, reducing Havasu Crossover capacity by 40 MMcf/d.

Bangor Hydro-Electric Co. announced plans to sell its 50% stakein Bangor Gas, the recently formed local distribution company thatwill deliver Sable Island gas to retail customers in the state ofMaine once the Maritimes pipeline begins service this winter.Sempra Energy owns the other half of the company, which was formedin 1997 to distribute gas production to customers in and aroundBangor and other cities in Maine.

Anticipating that high system linepack will continue through theweekend due to low gas demand and limited storage injectioncapability, Tennessee Tuesday issued an OFO Action Alert to takeeffect with Thursday’s gas day. Customers under Rate Schedules SA,LMS-PA, LMS-MA and transportation contracts not covered by abalancing agreement must keep deliveries into the system less thanor equal to scheduled quantities plus 2% (or 500 dekatherms,whichever is greater); takes from the system must be more than orequal to scheduled quantities minus 2% or 500 dekatherms. Tennesseeexpects the alert to remain in effect into the start of next week.

Bangor Hydro-Electric Co. announced plans to sell its 50% stakein Bangor Gas, the recently formed local distribution company thatwill deliver Sable Island gas to retail customers in the state ofMaine once the Maritimes pipeline begins service this winter.Sempra Energy owns the other half of the company, which was formedin 1997 to distribute gas production to customers in and aroundBangor and other cities in Maine.

Citing high storage inventories and declining injectioncapabilities related to high field pressures, CIG will implement anOFO taking effect today until further notice for all firmtransportation and storage customers. To relieve a “criticaloperational situation,” CIG is limiting No-Notice Transportation(NNT-1 and NNT-2) customers to an injection maximum of 1/250th oftheir contractual Maximum Available Capacity. Shippers with storageinventory exceeding MAC should initiate withdrawals to get withintheir allowable limits, the pipeline said. Although interruptiblestorage customers (IS-1) were not specifically part of the OFO,they were notified that injections are not available. In additionto the storage situation, CIG said, excessive positive imbalanceson FT contracts are threatening system integrity.

Despite its claims otherwise, Northern Border Pipeline’sproposed Project 2000 expansion/extension will have a significant”negative impact” on Natural Gas Pipeline Co. of America (NGPL),both on a system-wide basis and on its deliveries to North Hayden,IN, the Kinder Morgan pipeline said.

Kinder Morgan and KN Energy announced the completion of theirmerger. The company has been renamed Kinder Morgan, Inc. and willtrade under the New York Stock Exchange symbol “KMI.” The $900million merger was announced last July.

Southern Energy Inc., a unit of Southern Co. is selling its 50%interest in Louisiana Generating LLC to NRG Energy Inc. LouisianaGenerating, which will now be held 100% by Minneapolis-based NRG,was recently confirmed by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Gerald H. Schiff asthe winning bidder for bankrupt Cajun Electric Power Cooperative’s1,708 MW of fossil-fueled generation. Louisiana Generating offered$1.026 billion for the Cajun assets.