Three separate utilities have formed subsidiaries:

s The Columbia Gas System, Inc.'s new unit, Columbia Service Partners, Inc. will market new, nongas needs to homeowners and businesses, including warranty, fuel management, and gas-line repair services.

s Brooklyn Union's new gas marketing affiliate, KeySpan Energy Services, Inc., will buy and sell gas and provide transportation and related services, first to commercial and industrial customers, then to aggregated commercial and residential customers.

s Eastern Enterprises has formed AllEnergy Marketing Co., an unregulated company targeting commercial and industrial customers of energy commodities and services.

South Carolina Electric & Gas has dedicated its $411-million, 385-Mw power plant in Orangeburg County, SC. The single unit burns pulverized coal.

An Allegheny Power subsidiary has filed for exempt telecommunications company status with the Federal Communications Commission. The filing would permit the subsidiary, Allegheny Communications Connect, Inc. (ACC), to provide various telecom services.

SCANA Corp., a diversified energy holding company, has changed the name of subsidiary MPX Systems to SCANA Communications, Inc.

CMS Energy Corp., part of a seven-company consortium, has won a 40-percent interest in an Argentine distribution utility for $161 million. The utility, north of Buenos Aires and known as EDEER, S.A., is now 90 percent owned by the consortium. EDEER employees hold the remaining shares. Most of the ownership is Argentinean, but other owners include Fondelec, a U.S. investment fund (7.5 percent), and Williams International (6 percent). EDEER, a recent privatization, serves 217,000 customers and had sales last year of $105 million. Affiliates of CMS and ASTRA, an Argentine energy company, will jointly operate the utility, with CMS as lead operator.

Continental Power Exchange, Inc. (CPEX), in the wake of the Orders 888 and 889, promises all CPEX participants free access to its version of OASIS, the FERC's planned real-time information network. CPEX says OpenAccessTM, which will be available prior to the FERC's Nov. 1 deadline, will meet all requirements, protocols, and standards. t

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