Daily GPI

Scana Energy Marketing, a subsidiary of Scana Corp., has filed alawsuit in Cobb County Superior Court in Georgia in an attempt tohave the marketing alliance contract, which it signed in 1998 withsix co-ops, nullified.

Effective Saturday (Dec. 9) Northwest planned to move from itsthen-current Stage II (8%) Entitlement for delivery points north ofKemmerer (WY) Station to a Stage 1 (3%) Entitlement. Northwest saidit was taking the action to insure operational integrity “giventhat the system has been drafted for the last two days andextremely cold weather is predicted for most of Northwest’smarkets.”

Records are made to be broken, or so the saying goes. Whileprices continued to dive Friday from the Rockies/Southwesteastward, the California and Pacific Northwest markets kept revvingit like never before. Malin and the PG&E citygate hit the newall-time high mark of $61.

Boosted by what may be the most bullish weather forecast to hitthe industry in years, natural gas futures spiked dramatically inmultiple buying surges last week as traders pressed the envelope oftheir long exposures.

The nation’s energy spotlight continued to glare unrelentinglyon California’s electricity market as it narrowly avoided the needfor rolling blackouts last week, and now the state’s energyofficials are left holding their collective breath this week,watching weather, supply, price and regulatory indicators.

Citing market’s jitters over strapped gas inventory levels andthe prospect of a much colder winter this year, the EnergyInformation Administration (EIA) projects that wellhead prices willstay above the $5/Mcf mark throughout this winter, fueling pricehikes of about 40% for residential gas customers.

Hurricane guru William Gray of Colorado State University ispredicting a relatively quiet tropical weather season in theAtlantic and Caribbean next year mainly because of a weak tomoderate El Nino. Gray expects nine named storms. Five storms wouldbecome hurricanes and two of those would be major hurricanes.

Williams’ Northwest Pipeline Thursday announced that it isplanning an expansion and is holding an open season for firmcapacity on its system between Sumas and Chehalis, WA.

Dismissing the criticisms of a few of the expected competitorsin Texas’ coming deregulated electricity market, the Public UtilityCommission last week adopted rules that require affiliate powergeneration companies unbundled from current integrated utilities tosell entitlements to their power generation. PUC said the ruleswould benefit electric customers by proving a more competitivewholesale market when it begins Jan. 1, 2002.