The authors asked pipelines
and LDCs how they used storage.
Leasing activity proved a surprise.
Since deregulation, the natural gas industry has seen tremendous changes in every sector. Competitive pressures have reorganized business strategies so much that only those firms that adapt will survive. One area that stands ripe for change is the natural gas storage market.
Why build gas storage fields?
High industrial electricity rates are often blamed upon current regulation. Some state regulators respond with broad-based reforms; others simply reallocate system costs from industrial rate classes to rates for more inelastic customers (em namely, residential users.
When the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) instituted the subscriber line charge (SLC), telephone household penetration rates actually increased, even though local rates rose when the SLC was rolled in.
William T. O'Connor, Jr. has been hired as nuclear assessment manager at Detroit Edison's Fermi 2 nuclear power plant. He comes from Toledo Edison's Davis-Besse nuclear plant, where he was regulatory affairs manager.
Daniel Bollom, WPS Resources Corp. CEO, has been promoted to chairman of the board. Larry Weyers, senior v.p.-power supply and engineering, was promoted to president and COO of both WPSR and Wisconsin Public Service Corp., one of WPSR's holdings.
The Appellate Court of Illinois (First District) has ruled that the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) failed to properly consider the effect on consumers when it approved a rate restructuring plan for Central Telephone Co. of Illinois, a telecommunications local exchange carrier (LEC). An ICC order from a base-rate proceeding had permitted the LEC to eliminate most of its flat-rate calling plans and replace them with usage-sensitive service offerings. The order also permitted a general shift of costs away from business users and onto the residential customer class.
An Illinois Appellate Court has reversed a ruling by the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) that had allowed Commonwealth Edison Co. to enter negotiated rate contracts with up to 25 large general-service customers to retain existing load. The ICC had ruled that the antibypass tariff would not conflict with state laws requiring filing and publication of utility rates, because it must contain a description of the pricing and service parameters used in negotiating the individual contracts.
Joseph Santaniello has been named director of management information systems for NUI Corp. He was previously director of engineering at Elizabethtown Gas, NUI's New Jersey operating division. Stephen Liaskos, formerly controller at Metallgesellschaft Corp., joins NUI as controller. Michael A. Palecki, most recently of the Florida Public Service Commission, has been named v.p. of regulatory affairs for NUI's southern division.
BICC Utility Cable Co.
The Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) has signaled a willingness to remove the current business/residential differential from local telephone rates. While rejecting a proposal by its staff to begin the rate restructuring move in a case involving rates for a limited number of custom-calling services provided by Harrisonville Telephone Co., a small local exchange carrier, the ICC agreed that a movement toward eliminating the differential was appropriate under current pricing practices.
For a good half a century, electric regulation has meant law, accounting, and economics. But no more. Now it's all about computers, telecommunications, and file-transfer protocols. Forget about CWIP, AFUDC, double leverage, and interest synchronization. They are all irrelevant.
The Illinois legislature has established a committee to study reforming the electric utility industry in Illinois through competition. The Joint Committee on Electric Utility Reform will be guided by Energy Choice 2000, a proposal that would allow utilities to compete for large customers as of 2000. The Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) would have the power to let residential and small commercial customers to select their supplier by 2006. The proposal was developed by the Coalition for Consumer Choice, which comprises various Illinois businesses as well as Illinois Power.