York

Energy East Corp., parent of New York State Electric & Gas,offered to buy Connecticut Energy Corp. (CNE) for $617 millionFriday, paving the way for the combined utility to add 160,000 newgas customers and at the same time continuing to shrink the numberof pure gas utilities. The board of directors for each company hasagreed to the deal.

Energy East Corp., parent of New York State Electric &Gas, offered to buy Connecticut Energy Corp. (CNE) for $617 million Friday, paving the way for the combined utility to add 160,000 new gas customers and at the same time continuing to shrink the number of pure gas utilities. The board of directors for each company has agreed to the deal.

BGE shareholders approved the formation of holding companyConstellation Energy Group Inc. Constellation Energy is now set tobe launched May 3, trading under the CEG ticker symbol on the NewYork Stock Exchange. Constellation Energy will be the parentcompany that holds BGE’s common stock and the common stock of allof BGE’s current subsidiaries. BGE will become a sibling to itscurrent subsidiaries and will remain regulated by the MarylandPublic Service Commission.

Consolidated Edison and Orange and Rockland Utilities passed amilestone on their way to merging with approval of the transactionFriday by the New York Public Service Commission (NYPSC). Themerger also has been approved by the New Jersey and Pennsylvaniaregulators and FERC. Con Ed plans to acquire all O&R’s commonstock for $58.50 per share, or about $790 million. O&R willbecome a wholly-owned subsidiary of Consolidated Edison and willcontinue to operate as a separate company. The utilities areawaiting the approval of the Securities and Exchange Commission andcompletion of the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act review by the U.S.Department of Justice and expect to close the transaction by nextmonth.

Electronic trading may be the antidote to anemic trading of theNew York Mercantile Exchange’s Alberta and Permian Basin gasfutures contracts, Exchange President R. Patrick Thompson said lastweek.

Trading at the New York Mercantile Exchange for the month ofFebruary has featured tight but choppy ranges punctuated by smalldecreases when sellers slightly outnumbered the buyers in themarket. And yesterday’s expiration-day session was simply amicrocosm of that as the March contract was the focus of a fierce,and mostly balanced battle, which was ultimately decided by sellerslate in the day. The March contract concluded its reign as promptmonth with a 4.4-cent decline to settle at $1.666.

Natural gas futures trading at the New York Mercantile Exchangestarted the week slightly on the down side Monday, as bearishfundamentals once again set the tone for a weaker trading session.The March Futures contract opened down 4.2 cents from Friday’ssettle, and continued the day trading in a tight 5-cent range toclose down 3.3 cents at $1.744. “As far as fundamentals areconcerned, the outlook looks bearish for this contract,” one tradersaid. “You have extremely mild weather and no support at Nymex and,certainly, storage numbers are still significant.”

Traders put bearish fundamentals aside yesterday at the New YorkMercantile exchange when short-covering and some constructive dailychart features helped the expiring February contract spike higherin active trading. Estimated volume was high, with 134,852contracts changing hands. But despite February’s dramatic 9.6-centadvance to settle at $1.810, many doubt that the market will beable to hold on to those gains when the March contract makes itsdebut today as the prompt month.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) last weekapproved a New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) application totrade electricity futures and options based on delivery at thePennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland (PJM) western hub. And slated forapproval today is the proposed and competing Chicago Board of Trade(CBOT) PJM western hub electricity futures contract.