NGI The Weekly Gas Market Report

True to its word that it would beat forecasts, first quarter earnings at Dominion were up 27% compared with a year earlier, as the Richmond, VA-based profited from the colder temperatures and greater demand from its utility. Wall Street analysts had predicted earnings of $1.24 per share, which the company predicted it would surpass.

Echoing the concerns cited by Duke Energy earlier, scores of West Coast energy suppliers disputed FERC staff’s view that the California market monitoring rules provide the legal backing for the Commission to issue show-cause orders against them and other sellers, threatening the loss of market-based rate authority and/or alleged ill-gotten profits.

The last gasp of winter may have been heard last Thursday when the Energy Information Administration (EIA) startled market observers by reporting a 9 Bcf net withdrawal from gas storage for the week ending April 4 after two weeks of solid net injections.

A California Senate panel voted out a measure Tuesday to make the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) into an elective body with each of its five commissioners elected from a separate state district. Industrial customers opposed the measure, which would be a constitutional amendment (SCR 6), saying it would make regulatory decisions even more political. But state utilities so far have voiced no opinion on the bill.

E. Linn Draper Jr., 61, the chairman and CEO of American Electric Power (AEP), said Wednesday he will retire in 2004. Draper became president of the Columbus, OH-based utility giant in March 1992 following 13 years with Gulf States Utilities Co. in Beaumont, TX, where he served as CEO. He took over the chair and CEO positions for AEP in May 1993.

Two critical ingredients will come together within days — or weeks, at most — for the Canadian entry in the Arctic natural gas pipeline race, the federal minister of indian affairs and northern development predicted last week.

EIA officials disclosed in an interview with NGI on Friday that the agency is planning to make a change to its natural gas storage survey estimation parameters to improve its weekly storage estimates while avoiding frequent storage revisions.

Shell Trading said that Mark Hanafin, currently CEO of Shell Trading US Co. (STUSCO), will succeed Peter Ward as CEO of Shell Trading Gas & Power Co. and of Coral Energy. Bernard Auplat, currently general manager for ButaGaz, Shell’s liquefied petroleum gas business in France, will succeed Hanafin. Hanafin has worked in a variety of trading and management positions in the UK, Bulgaria and the United States. He will take over his new role in mid-April. Auplat has worked in a variety of supply and trading positions in France, the UK and the Netherlands. He will join STUSCO in June. STUSCO is active both domestically and internationally in the trading of crude oil and refined petroleum products. Coral Energy is the dedicated marketer of Shell’s natural gas production in the United States and Canada, and a major North American gas and power marketing and trading company. Both are based in Houston.

While a $630 million refinancing package on Friday is a step in the right direction for Aquila Inc., Standard and Poor’s said it’s certainly not enough to offset the significant asset sales risks and desperate cash flow needs of the company. S&P cut Aquila’s corporate credit rating Friday to “B” from “B+.” It assigned a “B+” rating to Aquila’s new three-year $430 million senior secured credit facility. Aquila got a one-year $200 million loan for its Australian subsidiary, UtiliCorp Australia Inc.