Money, power, gas and the law: The `big` convergence
- Duane, Morris and Heckscher LLP, Washington, DC (United States)
Nothing ever endures but change, and in the ever whirling wheel of change that is the energy economy and its regulation, massive flux is under way. The key ingredients in this mix--the gas and electric industries, the financial instruments and entities that back them, and the laws and regulations that control and guide them--are in a confluence moving at warp speed. Assets are being divested or monetized. Financial products--not only reserves--are the answer to managing supply risks. Spark spreads--the financial differential between the price of gas as a commodity and gas that has been transformed into electrons--are being traded. Electric restructuring is being patterned on the template of the gas experience. Electronic bulletin boards and trading systems are linking the industries in cyberspace. And the consolidation of these industries has led to the biggest mating game in the energy industries` history, all at a fast-forward pace. Federal and state legislators and regulators swim in the same tank as the voracious entities this article discusses. Faced with unimagined combinations of players, complicated market power questions swirl around the merger and acquisition marriages. And, as the markets push ahead with new ideas, the regulators attempt to shape the process with their own proposals to influence the market of the next millennium. This article discusses some of the major moves and certain key regulatory decisions regarding these landscape-altering initiatives.
- OSTI ID:
- 619659
- Journal Information:
- Oil and Gas Journal, Vol. 96, Issue 26; Other Information: PBD: 29 Jun 1998
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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