Daily GPI

Cool breezy weather across much of the nation, new predictions of a weak hurricane season and expectations of another relatively large storage injection despite last week’s record heat were some of the major fundamental factors that helped the bears pressure the September gas futures contract down 5.6 cents Wednesday to $2.660.

Following the lead of other multi-faceted energy marketers forced to sell income-producing assets to build cash, CMS Energy Corp. is negotiating the possible sale of its entire domestic pipeline and field services businesses, worth a combined net value of $1.4 billion. Assets on the table include the Panhandle Eastern and Trunkline interstate natural gas pipelines, the Lake Charles, LA, liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal, CMS Field Services’ gas gathering and processing assets, and its one-third ownership interest in Guardian Pipeline.

Williams Cos. employees used to “living on Tulsa time” may have to reset their watches in the next few weeks, after an internal company memo announced that the Oklahoma-based company will slash its workforce payroll up to one-third, slicing about 4,000 positions through asset sales, retirement and layoffs. Most of the affected employees will no longer be Williams employees when the asset sales are completed, but the cuts will be deeply felt in the already wounded energy trading unit in Tulsa, where at least 100 will get a final paycheck in the next few days, and up to 330 in the next two months. London is expected to trim up to 70 European traders, while Houston could lose up to 25.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has approved a stipulation and consent agreement ordering National Fuel Gas Supply Corp. to pay refunds to its firm storage and transportation customers who subscribed to service during a period in which the company illegally operated a storage well without the prior consent of the agency.

Columbia Gas Transmission, a unit of NiSource Inc., said a 30-inch diameter looping line carrying about 60 MMcf/d of gas in West Virginia ruptured Monday at 11 p.m., causing a fire but no injuries.

FERC Chief Administrative Law Judge Curtis L. Wagner said Tuesday he expects to issue an initial decision by the end of August in a long-standing complaint case brought by California regulators, accusing El Paso Natural Gas of withholding transportation capacity from customers during the 2000-2001 heating season in an attempt to drive up prices for natural gas delivered to the Southern California border.

It appears the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission isn’t the only federal agency raising questions about the propriety of emergency loans that were secured by two Enron Corp. pipeline subsidiaries at the time — Northern Natural Gas Co. and Transwestern Pipeline — to help bail out the financially troubled parent company just before it plunged into bankruptcy. The Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also have taken an interest, according to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

With Williams’ Western Frontier pipeline from northern Colorado to Kansas and Oklahoma being shelved and other Rockies pipeline projects in doubt because of the financial crisis gripping the industry, Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP has stepped in with a new pipeline plan of its own. The company is proposing a system that would deliver gas from the Powder River Basin and other Wyoming gas producing areas to markets in the Midcontinent and Midwest eventually terminating in Kansas City.

Less than three weeks after receiving a certificate for the project, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has given Kern River Gas Transmission a green light to begin constructing some of its 2003 Expansion pipeline and compression facilities in Wyoming and Utah.