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Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI) said last week that it expects to “meet or beat” the consensus 2001 estimate for recurring earnings per share (EPS) of $1.88, representing a near 47% increase over the $1.28 per share the company posted in 2000. The company said it also believes it will meet or beat the third quarter earnings per share of $0.45.

Con Edison last Wednesday announced the restoration of electrical service to its Cortlandt network in the early morning hours, returning service to all networks in lower Manhattan that lost power because of the recent terrorist attack at the World Trade Center. The company urged customers whose power has been restored to minimize the use of electricity while work continues in the area.

The board of directors of Magnum Hunter Resources Inc. reported late last week that they have elected Gary C. Evans as chairman of the company. He will also retain his position as the company’s president and CEO. Magnum Hunter said Evans, 44, succeeds Matthew C. Lutz who retired as chairman and executive vice president at the beginning of September. Evans previously has served as president, CEO and a director of Magnum Hunter Resources Inc. since Dec. 1995 and chairman and CEO of all of the Magnum Hunter subsidiaries since their formation or acquisition. Evans founded the predecessor company, Hunter Resources Inc., in 1985.

Transco said maintenance is scheduled for the Mobile Bay Gas Processing Plant from Sunday through Tuesday. The overall Btu content of gas on Transco’s system downstream of the plant may increase temporarily during this period.

On the heels of fresh storage news and in sympathy with gains achieved in the nearby crude oil pit, natural gas futures rebounded from their morning lows Thursday as scale-down buying interest lifted the market to its first positive close since the New York Mercantile Exchange reopened for business last Friday. Buying was almost uniform across all contracts, with November edging out the rest of the strip with a 3.7-cent advance to close at $2.464. October followed not far behind, gaining 3.5 cents to finish at $2.137.

The General Accounting Office (GAO) has cleared former FERC Chairman Curt Hebert and Enron Corp. Chairman Kenneth Lay of any criminal charges and ethics violations stemming from a telephone conversation between the two men last February in which Hebert claimed Lay asked him to change his position on a key Commission policy issue in exchange for his endorsing Hebert to continue on as chairman.

A local utility company spin-off and creation of three new separate federally regulated electric and natural gas businesses are central elements of a reorganization plan filed Thursday by Pacific Gas and Electric Co. in its Chapter 11 proceedings in federal bankruptcy court. The plan calls for all creditors to be paid in full without any added retail utility rate increases or a so-called “bailout” from state lawmakers. The utility, a major part of PG&E Corp., said the official creditors’ committee supports the plan, which the company expects to have fully implemented by the end of 2002.

In the wake of last week’s terrorist attacks on Washington, DC, New York City and an airliner that crashed in Pennsylvania, issues related to the security of the nation’s energy infrastructure came to the fore at a hearing Thursday on Capitol Hill. Several members of Congress made it clear that they stand ready to craft legislation designed to meet possible threats to the transmission grid, pipelines and other key sectors of the energy industry.

As investors are being blitzed with reports of bleak economic news and widespread stock sell-offs on Wall Street, Raymond James & Associates Thursday offered an encouraging word to energy companies: energy stocks are “at or very near the bottom point.”