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Salt Lake City-based Questar Corp. said Wednesday that the $100 million, 410-mile eastern portion of its converted Southern Trails pipeline is expected to be free-flowing gas supplies by mid-June en route to being fully operation with 80 MMcf/d of compressed supplies flowing in the former oil pipeline by July 1. The pipeline stretches from the Four Corners area of New Mexico to the California border.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was in a giving mood last Thursday as it handed out a number of certificates and permits for pipeline and storage expansion projects filed by Colorado Interstate Gas Co. (CIG), Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline LLC, Egan Hub Partners LP, Iroquois Gas Transmission and Reef International LLC.

Reiterating that it does not own or want to own an energy trading business, Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI)and Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP (KMP) reaffirmed their comfort with consensus earnings estimates for both the second quarter and the year.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee does not plan to proceed with the Republican nominee for FERC, Joseph T. Kelliher, until the White House taps a Democratic appointee, namely former New Mexico regulator Suedeen Kelly, for the agency, said a spokesman for the committee.

The round-trip energy marketing scandal claimed another victim Friday, after CMS Energy Corp. announced the resignation of William T. McCormick as chairman and CEO. The Dearborn, MI-based company’s board of directors will establish a special committee of independent directors in the next week to investigate “matters surrounding round-trip trades” conducted by the CMS Marketing, Services and Trading (CMS-MST) unit, and in turn, the company plans to amend “as soon as practical” its 2001 10-K to restate its financial statements for 2000 and 2001 to eliminate all revenue and expense related to the wash trades.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has called on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to pay close attention to natural gas traded between November 2000 and May 2001 as it continues to investigate allegedly fraudulent and manipulative trading practices in California and other western energy markets during the critical 2000-2001 period.

Swing prices for the first three days of June took a dive Friday from both monthly index and end-of-May levels as many sources had predicted earlier in the week. Thursday’s plunges in energy futures had pointed the way down for cash, and although increasingly hotter weather spurred sharp gains in power prices in most areas Friday, that failed to bolster the cash gas market.

Looking to calm investor and credit rating agency jitters about energy trading operations, Aquila, Inc. on Friday said that it estimates that 70% of its 2002 operating earnings and 75% of its 2003 operating earnings will come from the more traditional side of its business mix. The company also said it intends to maintain its dividend at $1.20 per share.

Despite a rebound in the nearby crude oil pit, natural gas futures were flat Friday as neither commercial nor speculative traders were willing to push prices very far from center following a tumultuous prior three days of trading. The July contract finished at $3.217, down a half-cent for the day, 22.9 cents for the week and 20.3 cents beneath the final resting place of the June contract, which expired Wednesday. At a paltry 65,141, estimated volume in the gas pit was evidence of the quiet trading Friday.