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California regulators Thursday turned down an emergencysix-month provisional avoided-cost measure that would have frozenthe gas prices used by utilities in their formula for payingmust-take qualifying facility (QF) electricity generators.

Mountain Energy Corp., a Midwest gas marketer, said yesterday ithas had to ask about 10% of its customers to change theirfixed-priced supply contracts to index-based arrangements for theremainder of their contracts due to a “major dispute” with AnadarkoEnergy Services over the “hedging of our accounts.”

Conoco Inc. agreed yesterday to use Planalytics’ WeathernomicsGas Buyer, an Internet-based tool for natural gas buyers andsellers that suggests ways to reduce risk and exploit opportunitiesfrom weather-driven changes in gas prices.

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.