Cheniere Energy Inc. wants investors to know that it intends to be a major player in the liquefied natural gas (LNG) business. The next best thing to changing its name to LNG is changing its stock ticker symbol. Effective next Monday (March 24), its symbol on the American Stock Exchange will change to LNG from CXY. The company has four potential sites for liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminals along the Texas Gulf Coast and sees LNG as its strategic focus in the future because of declining domestic natural gas supply. “We have established a strong exploration and production foundation for Cheniere with growing natural gas reserves, cash flow and inventory of prospects that together become more valuable daily as our nation’s natural gas markets hover on almost historically low inventories. However, domestic exploration is no longer sufficient to assure meeting the growth in demand for natural gas, and our country will increasingly rely on imports in the form of LNG,” said Cheniere Energy Chairman Charif Souki said. “This symbol will reflect our new area of focus.” Houston-based Cheniere conducts exploration in the Gulf using a regional database of 7,000 square miles of 3D seismic coverage. It owns 9% of Gryphon Exploration.

NSTAR Gas filed last week with the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Energy (MDTE) a request to reduce the Cost of Gas Adjustment (CGA) to 81.80 cents per therm from the current price of 89.36 cents per therm. The new filing to cover the off-peak season running from May 1 to Oct. 31, came about three weeks after the company filed an interim rate increase from 70.70 cents/therm to the current 89 cent level in late February. That filing was to comply with rules that call for an interim re-adjustment in rates anytime NSTAR’s gas costs vary by more than 5%. It reflected the continued increase in the price of gas this winter. Last September NSTAR proposed to start the heating season Nov. 1, 2002 at 61.39 cents/therm. Prior to that request, NSTAR lowered the CGA six consecutive times, from a high of $1.11 per therm in February 2001. The November 2002 price compared with the November 2001 CGA of 52.61 cents per therm. While the off-peak price of 81 cents starting in May has come off the winter high a little, it is still 33% higher than the 61 cent rate at the start of the winter. The rate changes reflect the continuing volatility of natural gas prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), NSTAR said.

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