El Paso Natural Gas Co. (EPNG) has filed a settlement at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that resolves its general rate case with natural gas pipeline customers such as Southern California Gas Co. (SCG) as well as the question of who pays for unsubscribed capacity.
Months of confidential negotiations resulted in agreements with 95 percent of EPNG's customers, and with the California, Nevada, and Arizona commissions.
So the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) won't break up the electric utility industry. But it may happen anyway (em if not at the FERC's direction, then perhaps under pressure from state regulators who, some say, are threatening to link stranded-cost recovery to vertical disaggregation.
What would a breakup mean for bonds and bondholders?
As we reported last month ("New Corporate Structures Place Bondholders at Risk," May 1, 1996, p.
Charles B. Curtis, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy, spoke on the world energy balance and its impact on U.S. markets at the American Gas Association (A.G.A.) Natural Gas Roundtable on April 2 in Washington, DC. Curtis pointed out the security implications of the latest Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecast that global demand for oil might reach an additional 20 million barrels a day by 2010, and that the Persian Gulf would likely supply 75 percent of that demand.
Consumers
Labor Unions
ManagementDeregulation isn't just for utilities anymore.
This year, PUBLIC UTILITIES FORTNIGHTLY'S
annual Electric Executive's Forum recognizes
the growing constituency of the electric
utility industry.
The City of Palm Springs, CA, has asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to approve a plan allowing it to enter the electric business by installing a second electric meter at customer locations.
U.S. utilities find
a wealth of opportunity
down under.Australia.
It drew more than $7 billion in investment from U.S. electric utility subsidiaries at the end of 1995. Ongoing privatization will likely draw billions more.
Five electric distribution companies and a generating company have been sold in Australia's southeastern State of Victoria, and four more generating companies are expected to go on the block.
The Idaho Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has reversed a series of earlier rulings and has now allowed U S WEST Communications, Inc. to sell certain rural telephone exchanges to small independent local telephone carriers. Putting aside prior concerns that excessive sales prices would impose higher rates, the PUC found that projections of the ratio of purchase price to net book value had been overstated. It said the ratio had improved with recent increases in plant investment, as well as from a plan by U S WEST to contribute funds to replace switches in the sale exchanges.
Dwindling economic competitiveness has plagued the nuclear power industry for
some years. In the industry's early years, some reactors were completed for less than $100 million. Experience gained overseas (often in projects with American partners) provides sobering evidence that nuclear reactors can still be built at low cost in short periods of time.
Power marketing administrations (PMAs) suffered a setback on May 2 when the U.S. House Subcommittee on Water and Power Resources held an oversight hearing on the Pick-Sloan Eastern Division of the Western Area Power Administration (WAPA). According to a General Accounting Office (GAO) report issued that morning, about $454 million of the Division's irrigation and flood control investment in hydropower facilities will not be recoverable, because the irrigation projects will not be completed.