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Conoco Inc. elected Archie W. Dunham chairman of the board,succeeding Edgar S. Woolard, Jr. Dunham will continue to serveConoco as president and CEO, as well as chair. Woolard and Gary M.Pfeiffer, a senior vice president and CFO of DuPont, resigned theConoco board as planned, at the conclusion of the company’ssplit-off from DuPont. Woolard is a former DuPont chairman, and hadbeen chairman of Conoco’s board since July 1998. He remains aDuPont director. Concurrent with his election as Conoco chairman,Dunham steps down from the DuPont board. The moves create twoadditional vacancies on Conoco’s board. The company said it expectsthese vacancies to be filled in the near future.

Pipeline-on-pipeline competition in the Colorado and Wyomingregion will have to wait at least another year, says KN WattenbergTransmission LLC. It has asked FERC for a one-year extension tobuild and put into operation its proposed 109-mile Front RunnerPipeline, which was supposed to begin service this month.

National Fuel Gas Co. said Philip C. Ackerman has been electedpresident of the company. David F. Smith will succeed Ackerman aspresident of National Fuel Distribution Corp. Ackerman has beenwith the company since 1968, and Smith has been with National Fuelsince 1978.

The battle over who will get to build new pipeline capacity tothe prized Northeast gas market has reached a feverish pitch, withsponsors dreaming up ways to knock out their competitors’ projects.ANR Pipeline and National Fuel Gas Supply Corp., sponsors of theproposed Independence Pipeline, recently proposed a plan that couldwipe out a large part of Columbia Gas Transmission’s MillenniumPipeline project. And Texas Eastern Transmission (Tetco) has joinedthe ranks, devising a proposal that could obviate the need forIndependence altogether and part of an associated project.

Transco extended Thursday the open season for FT service on itsSundance Expansion Project, originally scheduled to end June 1,through June 18. Sundance will provide extra capacity from Station65 in Louisiana to Station 165 in Virginia and is proposed to beginservice by April 1,2002.

The Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) Wednesday will resumea hearing on a negotiated settlement on rates, unbundling andcompetitive bidding between the commission and Oneok Inc. and itssubsidiaries Oklahoma Natural Gas (ONG) and Kansas Gas Service(KGS). The hearing began Friday.

Houston skyline watchers should note Transco Tower will berenamed Williams Tower. “The tower is a Houston landmark thatsymbolizes stability and innovation, two qualities that accuratelydefine our business at Williams,” said Cuba Wadlington Jr., generalmanager of Williams’ Transco pipeline system. Williams merged withTransco Energy Co. in 1995 and moved to the tower. Then, WilliamsCommunications Solutions, formerly known as WilTel, moved itsheadquarters there in August 1995. Today, Williams houses itsnational technical resource center at the tower and occupies 39floors. The tower is 64 stories tall and was built in 1982. It isthe tallest building in the United States located outside of adowntown area.

The Pennsylvania state senate will pass senate bill 601, (SB601), the gas deregulation bill for small commercial andresidential customers, on June 7, said a spokesman for Sen. JeffPiccola’s office. Piccola is the bill’s main sponsor in the statesenate.

While most large producers reported net income in the positivecolumn in the first quarter of 1998, it was not a quarter most willwant to remember, as returns compared to the first quarter of 1999dropped anywhere from Exxon’s relatively conservative 44% to 81%down for Enron Oil and Gas or a drop from $177 million in earningsin 1Q’98 for Occidental Petroleum to a $70 million loss in 1Q’99.