Daily GPI

The race to serve the lucrative Florida generation market becamemore clear yesterday, as Duke Energy announced it has shelved itsproposed Sawgrass pipeline project and allied with a formercompetitor, Williams’ Buccaneer Pipeline.

Although stating several times the FERC-ordered changes to itsexisting capacity-allocation procedures weren’t “necessary orappropriate,” El Paso Natural Gas has proposed a new allocationscheme that would assign “pathed” and “non-pathed” rights for thedelivery of shippers’ gas to the California market.

Nicor Inc. has signed on as an equal partner in the plannedHorizon Pipeline with Kinder Morgan Inc.’s Natural Gas PipelineCompany of America (NGPL), the companies said. The partners alsosubmitted Horizon’s application to FERC this week.

Commodity prices are up, and the financial performance of anumber of energy companies is on the rise. The question being askedthis week in Houston is why are Wall Streeters treating energycompany stocks like ugly stepchildren?

“Opportunities in the regulated utility business have never beenbetter,” according to UtiliCorp United Chairman Richard C. Green,Jr.

After engaging in a Northeast LDC eating binge last year, EnergyEast Corp. started the digestion phase of its strategy yesterday byannouncing the completion of its Connecticut Energy purchase. Thetransaction gives Energy East control over Southern Connecticut GasCo., an LDC serving 160,000 customers. The original purchase offerwas made last April for $617 million. Energy East (formerly knownas NYSEG) still has a full plate, however, as its transactions withCTG Resources, CMP Energy and Berkshire Energy are still beingprocessed. Following the completion of all the acquisitions, EnergyEast will have more than 1.3 million electric customers and morethan 542,000 gas customers, excluding any added through CMP NaturalGas, the Maine gas distribution partnership of Energy East and CMP.With CTG and Connecticut Energy, Energy East becomes the largestgas distributor in the state with about 300,000 customers.

Transco said IT availability through the Linden (NJ) RegulatorStation will shrink from 25,000 Dth/d to zero Friday.

Except for the still-falling Northeast, Tuesday’s developingmarket plunge came to a complete halt Wednesday and even reverseddirection at several Midcontinent and western points.

Despite moderating temperatures pervading much of the countryyesterday, gas futures were able to inch higher and take back asmall portion of recent losses as traders positioned themselvesahead of the release of fresh weather and storage news. March andApril contracts closed up 4.5 cents a piece at $2.54 and $2.507,respectively, while the 12-month strip grew 3.3 cents to $2.614.