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Nevada’s governor last week delayed opening the state’selectricity market until no later than Sept. 1, 2001, choosing toestablish a bipartisan statewide committee to develop a new energypolicy for the state.

Four stakeholder committees set up last March by the New YorkPublic Service Commission (PSC) have identified the key roadblocksin the state’s stalled retail energy deregulation process. By nextspring, they expect to have some solutions – if it isn’t too late.

For Anadarko, growing in leaps and bounds before it joined forces with United Pacific Resources, a merger just made sense. For EOG Resources, which at one time had been part of mega-marketer Enron, smaller is better, and a merger would not make sense. There is no denying, however, that the disparate strategies have worked for both.

Calling the blasts on the El Paso Natural Gas and Olympic PipeLine systems the “most visible indications of a serious, long-termproblem,” Rep. James L. Oberstar (D-MN) introduced pipeline safetylegislation this week in the House that he says takes a tougherstance against natural gas and hazardous liquid pipelines than theSenate measure passed last month.

Unocal re-evaluated its third quarter estimate yesterday toannounce that it expected earnings not to be 70 cents per share asannounced on July 27, but that its earnings would be between 90-95cents per share. The new expectation beats First Call/ThomsonFinancial’s consensus estimate of 79 cents by at least 11 cents.

After successfully completing a non-binding open season on Sept.21, for the Western Frontier project, Williams’ gas pipeline unitplans to hold a binding open season in the near future to gauge theexact market interest in the project that would transport gassupply from the Rockies to the mid-continent region.

In the good news department: Chevron Canada Resources said thatits reported natural gas production volumes from its Fort LiardK-29 well in the southwestern part of the Northwest Territories areabout 25 MMcf/d more than it had estimated.

Four stakeholders committees, set up last March by the PublicService Commission (PSC), have now identified the issues in thestate of New York’s stalled retail deregulation process forelectric power and natural gas, and by next spring they expect tohave some solutions — if it isn’t too late.

In the wake of a summer-long lamenting of the dysfunction, ifnot outright death, of California’s attempt at creating competitiveretail electricity markets, the state’s small remaining band ofnonutility retailers, or “energy service providers” (ESPs), isweighing in with state officials and utilities trying to breathenew life into the state’s once-optimistic drive for moremarket-based energy solutions.