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Continuing along its chosen path of focusing on its wholesale and energy risk management businesses, Kansas City, MO-based Aquila Inc. said on Monday that it has sold the retail energy manager services business of UtiliCorp Energy Solutions to Energy Management Resources Inc., a nationwide provider of energy supply management services to commercial and industrial customers throughout the United States.

Burgeoning gas production in northern British Columbia has prompted Westcoast Energy to hold another open season for a capacity expansion. As a result of a recent open season, Westcoast gathered binding requests for 33 MMcf/d of expansion service on its Forth Nelson mainline for an April 2002 in-service date. This new open season is for an additional 120 MMcf/d on the Fort Nelson line by November 2002.

Ivanhoe Energy and Unocal said Monday their 50-50 joint venture to explore for oil and natural gas in East Texas will focus on the Bossier Sand prospects in more than 46,000 gross acres (37,000 net) in a three-county area. Unocal will become operator and will fund the drilling costs for several exploration wells to offset the $10 million in leasehold, seismic and processing costs incurred by Ivanhoe. Once “investment equilibrium” is reached, the companies will become equal partners.

You probably don’t need a pocket calculator to determine that the market isn’t exactly ready right now for imported liquefied natural gas (LNG). But according to a new study by PIRA Energy Group, prices should average more than $3/MMBtu at the Henry Hub through 2015, creating an solid market over the long-term in the United States for a worldwide LNG supply that is expected to more than double over the next decade.

The American Public Gas Association (APGA) has called on the Energy Information Administration (EIA) to begin collecting and distributing “relevant and timely” natural gas production and consumption information on a regular basis to help temper the “extreme price swings” in the market.

The proposed 700 MMcf/d Millennium Pipeline project from Ontario to New York City crossed a key environmental hurdle last week when the National Marine Fisheries Service of the U.S. Department of Commerce issued a favorable biological opinion. The Fisheries Service said the project’s Hudson River crossing would have only minimal impact on the endangered shortnose sturgeon.

With the failure of the state to agree on a rescue plan to restore Southern California Edison’s financial viability, rumors last week grew louder that three of the major generators who are creditors would take the utility into involuntary bankruptcy.

Although the prospect for new rains and a renewed snowpack are not that many weeks off, the Pacific Northwest last week continued to grapple with the second worst drought in the region’s history of water level recordings.

With bulging storage stocks putting increased pressure on natural gas prices, a Prudential Securities Inc. analyst on Friday reduced or left unchanged her 2001 earnings-per-share (EPS) estimates for more than half of the major energy companies that she routinely tracks.