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FERC Chairman James Hoecker has announced the start-up of threenew offices, created as a result of the agency’s on-goingrestructuring.

UtiliCorp United said its power marketing operations willcontribute positively to second quarter earnings before interestand taxes. Wholesale electricity volumes for the quarter areexpected to be about 24.8 million MWh, up about 112% from the 1997quarter.

Another day, another dime (or so) down for cash prices.Acknowledging it was a colossal understatement, a marketercommented, “It seems like the buying frenzy is over.” Although airconditioning was still generating its fair share of demandWednesday, it wasn’t nearly enough to prevent more slides on eitherside of a dime at nearly all price points.

Nymex futures gave an early “head fake” looking to rebound fromlosses registered on Tuesday, but the move was insubstantial,giving way to minor softening before the close Wednesday. That leftthe market still in limbo without a clear signal whether the bottomhad been reached. The August contract slipped 1.7 cents to settleat $1.934 during relatively high volume of 82,830.

Williams has announced an open season running now through Aug.24 to sign up firm shippers for expansion of its Transco pipelinesystem running northeast from Station 85 across Alabama and Georgiato mainline delivery points in Zone 4 and ending just north ofAtlanta, GA.

Heat makes air and various other gases rise, but it was able todo little if anything to prevent a general rout in natural gas cashprices Tuesday. Decreases straddled the dime level at the greatmajority of points even as heat waves continued to sear much of thenation and sparked some $1,000-plus hourly prices per MWh in somepower markets.

Natural Gas futures tumbled late in the trading session Tuesday,breaking momentarily below major support at $1.945, before settlingat $1.951. The nearly 15-cent slide exhibited by the Augustcontract comes on the heels of a nearly 3-week decline, leavingmany traders wondering if Tuesday’s big move lower was the end ofthe downtrend or one just picking up speed. Estimated volume of106,004 contracts favored the later.

Consolidated Natural Gas Co. followed through on its plan toexit wholesale energy marketing yesterday by selling its gasmarketing operations, including supply, sales, storage andtransportation agreements, to Sempra Energy for $48 million.

Even though construction of the intrastate Front Range Pipelinealready is in progress and work on the Front Runner Pipeline isexpected to start “fairly soon,” the sponsors have disclosed thatthey are continuing discussions to possibly combine the two rivalprojects into a single pipeline to serve the growing Colorado gasmarket.