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TransColorado Gas Transmission Co. said it would start fillingadditional portions of the TransColorado Pipeline in New Mexico andwestern Colorado today with gas as it prepares to commence Phase 2operations in February.

The futures market gave the impression it would finish the weekon a boring note, and for nearly the entire abbreviated tradingsession last Thursday it did just that-trading within a tighttwo-cent range. But that was before bears gave the market a littlepre-Christmas surprise by selling the market into the final bell.The prompt January contract finished 2.5 cents lower at $1.881.Estimated volume was a paltry 24,112 contracts.

In a move similar to those of its peers, Chevron Corp. announcedit would cut expenses by $500 million next year, including someunspecified staff reductions, and spend about $5.1 billion, 8% lessthan was spent in 1998. Cuts in 1999 capital spending will beaccomplished primarily in the company’s mature North AmericanE&ampP business, as well as in refining and marketing and inchemicals.

FERC last week proposed a rulemaking that would update theexisting consensus standards of the Gas Industry Standards Board(GISB) with respect to confirmation practices, standardization ofinformation on pipeline Internet web sites and electronic datasets[RM96-1-011].

Unicom Corp.’s 2,698 MW Collins gas-fired power station could goup for sale as well as 1,396 MW of peaking units. A sale of theplants would mark the company’s exit from non-nuclear generation.As of Nov. 29, the gas plants burned nearly 45 million Btu of gassince the first of the year, a spokeswoman said.

Amoco said yesterday it would consolidate its U.S. explorationand production management offices in Houston to cut costs andincrease competitiveness. About 660 E&P management, technicaland administrative jobs in Denver and New Orleans will be affected.Many of the positions will be relocated to Houston, but Amoco saidthere will be some jobs eliminated as well.

Traders’ opinions have varied as to the direction the futuresmarket would take this week, and so it came as no surprise Mondaywhen it tested both the upside and the downside in early trading.But, when selling dried up below the $2.10 level, the Novembercontract was free to migrate higher to settle at $2.143.

California’s statewide electricity ballot referendum that wouldturn back parts of the state’s ongoing power industry restructuringis losing by a bigger margin in the latest nonpartisan FieldInstitute survey, but the percentage of undecided voters (36%) isstill large, according to political polling experts.

Citing continuing reduction of capacity by unseasonably hightemperatures, PG&E Gas Transmission-Northwest said it wouldagain be necessary to limit volumes today to 2,450 MMcf/d atKingsgate and to 1,870 MMcf/d at Station 14 (the last one upstreamof Malin) in order to return the system to optimum performance.