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Northwest issued a Declared Stage III Overrun Entitlement PeriodFriday, effective until further notice, citing “continual unauthorizeddrafting of the system resulting in excessive unrequested withdrawalsfrom Jackson Prairie” storage. The entitlement applies to deliverypoints north of the Kemmerer (WY) Compressor Station and subjectsshippers to penalties for overtakes exceeding a 13% tolerance aboveconfirmed nominations. A Stage I entitlement had been canceled on theprevious Sunday (see Daily GPI, Oct. 3).

Congress already has two measures pending that would help tomoderate the effects of the high natural gas bills expected thiswinter for consumers – the Clinton administration’s package ofenergy efficiency measures and short-term tax incentives forproducers, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said last week.

Merchant power plant developers attempting to get a foot in thedoor in Florida were thrown out again by the state Supreme Court.The court rejected Duke Energy’s motion for rehearing of a decisionhanded down this spring that said the state’s public servicecommission had no authority to approve a 514 MW merchant plant Dukeplanned to build in New Smyrna Beach.

The rush is on to build new pipeline capacity to serve rapidgas-fired power generation growth in the Southeast and Mid-Atlanticregions. Dominion Transmission last week announced a proposed $400million pipeline to serve primarily new power plants in Virginiaand North Carolina.

Unocal said last week that its expected earnings be aboutbetween 90-95 cents per share, or about 20-25 cents more than itsprior estimates and 11 cents more than First Call/ThomsonFinancial’s consensus estimate of 79 cents. The updated earningsestimate can be attributed to rising natural gas and oil prices,the company said. The new estimate took into account the expectedaverage price for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil of $31.60per barrel and a Henry Hub natural gas price of $4.35 per Mcf. TheJuly 27 forecast was based on a WTI price of $29.75 per barrel anda Henry Hub price of $4.00 per Mcf. Unocal said the latest estimatedoes not include “miscellaneous special items,” such as an expected$36 million aftertax charge for what it called a derivativesaccrual. Last year Unocal posted earnings of 17 cents per share forthe third quarter.

CMS Energy, Ameren Corp., KeySpan and UGI Corp. have joinedAllegheny Energy, Allete (formerly Minnesota Power) and PPL Corp.in the formation of Enporion Inc., a global e-procurement exchangefor the energy industry. The companies see the potential for bigsavings in pooling their buying power over the new exchange.

Volatility was once again the name of the game yesterday in thenatural gas pit at Nymex as prices tumbled lower after bulls failedto do much of anything with yesterday’s stronger opening trade. TheNovember contract was dealt the most severe blow, slipping 13.8cents to close at $5.152. The winter strip did not fare muchbetter, dropping a cool 12.5 cents to finish at 5.076.

Weighed down by misplaced hedges and long term fixed pricecontracts, Beau Canada Exploration Ltd. has sold out to Murphy OilCorp., one of its partners in the development of the hot Ladyfernprospect in northern Alberta and British Columbia, for a totalprice of US$255 million.

In its quest to become the first nationally branded utility inthe United States, TNPC Inc. — an alliance of Enron Corp.,America Online and IBM — said yesterday that its initial publicoffering of 24 million common shares at $21 per share would net thecompany nearly $473 million to intensify its retail marketingefforts and build a customer base.