The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission at its Thursday meeting gave Arlington Storage Co. a waiver of the agency’s certificate requirements in order to drill up to two test wells and conduct related testing activity to determine the technical and economic feasibility of developing an underground gas storage facility in the Thomas Corners Field in Steuben County, NY [CP08-60]. Arlington Storage is a subsidiary of Inergy LP.

Centrica plc‘s North American subsidiary, Direct Energy, said strong demand from business customers and accelerated growth in wholesale energy operations allowed the company to post 2007 operating profit of C$404 million, up 12% over full-year 2006. Direct Energy, the forty-third largest company in Canada, is not publicly traded, but Centrica reports the financial performance of its North American subsidiary. Centrica, which trades on the London Stock Exchange, reported full-year 2007 net earnings of C$2.21 billion. “Our continued growth reflects the diversity of our business and breadth of our offer to customers in increasingly competitive markets,” said Direct Energy CEO Deryk King. “While 2008 will be a challenging year we expect to continue to deliver both top and bottom line growth. We expect to minimize any impacts of the economic downturn by further increasing the diversity of our business portfolio, in particular by continuing to build material business upstream and in commercial and industrial downstream markets.” Direct Energy, which operates in Texas, the northeastern United States and across Canada, offers energy and energy-related services to more than five million residential and commercial customers.

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