Apache Corp. Chairman Raymond Plank, continues to blast energy marketing firms, saying the U.S. Department of Justice must follow through on corporate crime and punishment. “The Justice Department appears to be moving very slowly, and occasionally netting a small fry, while letting the larger guys — the guys who take the elevator to the top floor — continue” to move freely.

“There is an awful lot of self-interest at the present time in those who would rise again from the ashes where government has not accepted responsibility of cleaning up the messes and providing the structure under which, consumers and producers…can more closely relate on narrower margins for those who were full-service providers in the past,” the 81-year old Plank told the LDC Forum in Chicago, sponsored by Interchange Energy.

“I happen to believe that either praise or punishment needs to follow eminently that which is praiseworthy, or the punishment…follow where the kid or the adult gets badly out of line and contributes to the kind of situation that we see, not only in gas price volatility, but in the inducement of volatility through manipulation.”

The inherent volatility of natural gas attracts speculators, which further increases the price swings, Plank said. In the long run, he noted that volatility through manipulation doesn’t help anyone but the guys at the top. “If we see much more $10/Mcf gas, you’re not going to see a gas industry. The consumer just isn’t going to be able to pay it. What you’re going to have [is] demand destruction that is…impacting and reducing the amount of natural gas that is going to be sold in this country to an industrial market, because it can go someplace else.”

Referring to a “Turd Bad Apple Chart” that included AEP, Aquila, CMS, Duke, Dynegy, El Paso, Enron, Mirant, Reliant and Williams, Plank said “crime does not pay the shareholders. If you’ve got that volatility, that induced volatility, our industry has got really tough times ahead of it, when it shouldn’t. There is a great deal of gas, at least as so far as we are concerned, particularly to be brought in from across the border from Alberta, BC and on up into the Northwest Territories.” He added that Apache is currently “drilling, and we are finding [gas].”

Consulting the chart, Plank said by Jan. 1, 2001, the 10 companies had a combined market value of $184.2 billion. By Aug. 25, 2003, their market value after “a significant percentage recovery,” was $29.3 billion, and their loss was 84% of their value “once people caught on to them.”

“Unfortunately, a lot of that stuck to the fingers of the greedy, and unfortunately they are not in jail yet,” and used some more colorful language to make his point. “So again, we would like to see crime and punishment be more closely associated.”

Regarding Apache’s staunch support of having FERC make price reporting mandatory, Plank read a letter to the audience that he had sent to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chair Pat Wood on Aug. 19. “I regret that the ilk of those opposing mandatory reporting as a means of assurance against price manipulation and restoration of confidence in the energy markets includes those who disadvantaged consumers and producers alike. For I question why those who have raped the markets should be accorded time-of-day credibility in the first place.”

The Apache chairman rambled through a history of his company and touched on the dangers of terrorism and the need to educate today’s youth in his keynote presentation in Chicago.

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