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Horace Greeley’s advice to “go west, young man,” has never beenmore true than for independent North American oil and gascompanies, which are claiming stakes in the Rocky Mountains andreaping huge returns from the untapped natural gas reserves thatlie beneath the deep, thick sands in the mountainous, multi-stateregion.

Online trading opportunities for energy companies will growexponentially in the future, offering increased price transparency,trading opportunities, volumes of trades and less congestion in themarketplace. To work well, however, the marketplace has to providean efficient pool of opportunity and neutral platforms, said twoonline energy trading platform executives yesterday.

Williams has filed an amendment with the Federal EnergyRegulatory Commission requesting authorization to phaseconstruction of Transco pipeline’s MarketLink project over fouryears to satisfy requests by the project shippers.

Dominion Transmission will conduct an open season for an upgradeof its system to provide 300 MMcf/d of new firm transportation fromCanadian and Midwestern points to the Leidy, PA, hub forconnections to major markets in the Northeast.

The Citizens Utility Board (CUB) scored two wins yesterday asthe Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) voted to begin aninvestigation into Nicor Gas’ gas deregulation program andtemporarily block a proposed expansion of the program until thecompany can prove it benefits customers.

The Gulf of Mexico’s shallow basin is a “great place” forsmaller independents now and into the future, according to threewho should know. Executives with three of the best performingindependents say their companies will continue to focus nearly allof their attention on finding natural gas in the shallow offshoreareas of Texas and Louisiana.

California’s State Auditor General formally began contacting thestate’s nonprofit electric grid operator (Cal-ISO) and wholesalespot power market (Cal-PX) Wednesday in a state legislature-orderedinvestigation that could lead to the merger of the two entities.The state’s electricity price spikes and supply shortfall thissummer prompted legislative action in August ordering the probe.

A new study by the INGAA Foundation on gas infrastructurerequirements warns that the government’s current environmentalgoals may not be reached if regulators and legislators don’t startmaking more of an effort to ensure the required gas infrastructurecan be built to serve a 30 Tcf market by 2010.

Tractebel of Belgium yesterday completed the purchase of CabotLNG, the largest U.S. importer of liquefied natural gas, from CabotCorp., in a deal worth $680 million.