Daily GPI

Higher oil and gas prices spurred industry leaders ExxonMobiland Chevron to large leaps in fourth quarter ’99 earnings over thedepressed 4Q 1998.

Despite large increases in both operating income and income fromcontinuing operations, Columbia Energy Group’s 1999 bottom lineregressed from 1998, as a hostile takeover bid from NiSourcecombined with severe losses caused by Columbia’s marketingoperations to undermine the company’s overall performance.

Southwest Gas Corp. has sued Oneok, Inc. and Southern Union Co.following what it called “Oneok’s unjustified attempt to cancel themerger agreement between it and Southwest Gas.”

If FERC should deny rehearing of the interim order approvingIndependence Pipeline and the MarketLink expansion, Texas EasternTransmission (Tetco) has asked for a stay of the projects pendingjudicial review.

In an “emergency motion” filed last week, the New York PublicService Commission asked FERC not to award the proposed MillenniumPipeline final environmental clearance until an alternate route toan electric transmission right-of-way (ROW) in Westchester Countyis found for the project.

S&S Energy Products, a GE Power Systems business, wasawarded a $280 million contract from Reliant Energy of Houston toprovide 19 GE LM6000 aeroderivative gas turbine-generator sets,auxiliary and balance-of-plant equipment.

The bitter cold that cut through the Northeast last week,triggering record gas demand on distribution systems owned by SouthJersey Gas, KeySpan, Berkshire Gas, and Baltimore Gas and Electric,didn’t spare Con Edison of New York. The company said the severecold snap was responsible for record-setting gas usage as well asthe total amount of gas transported through its gas transmissionand distribution system.

Pittsburgh-based OnlineChoice announced yesterday that it haslaunched www.GasChoice.com, a free website that allows consumersnationwide to join no-obligation natural gas buying pools.GasChoice.com is forming buying pools right now in every state sothat once deregulation hits that locale, the pools of residentialand commercial consumers with group buying power are ready to bidand ready to save, the company said. In addition, the company isaggressively developing buying pool websites for telephone service,Internet access, and home security systems, all of which arefollowing closely on the heels of GasChoice.

The upper management at Kinder Morgan received a shake-upyesterday as P. Anthony Lannie was promoted to president of KinderMorgan’s power operations, C. Park Shaper was promoted to vicepresident and CFO and David Dehaemers moved from CFO to vicepresident of corporate development. Richard D. Kinder, CEO ofKinder Morgan, said the appointments strengthen the company’smanagement team. Lannie was president of Coral Energy Canada andsenior vice president and general counsel of Coral Energy, thedownstream gas and power segment of Shell Oil Co. Prior to joiningKinder Morgan, Shaper was president of Altair Corporation, afinancial services firm. He also was previously CFO of a divisionof First Data Corporation.