2001

Marketers that reported in both 4Q2009 and 4Q2010 posted an 8% increase in volumes from a year ago.

Weak national demand led all but a handful of companies to see natural gas marketing declines during the second quarter as the total volume sold in North America fell 9% — almost 11 Bcf/d — according to NGI’s 2Q2009 Top North American Gas Marketers Ranking. read more

Despite a decline in the survey’s top spot, overall natural gas marketing was up 6.2% year over year. read more

As a remnant of the western wholesale power market meltdown of 2000-2001, Bellevue, WA-based Puget Sound Energy (PSE) on Monday said its low-income weatherization funding will double next year, thanks to funds it will receive from the Washington state Attorney General’s Office from a 2005 settlement with Enron Corp. PSE will get more than $2.1 million from the Enron case.

Former Enron Corp. CEO Jeffrey Skilling has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to review his convictions. Before Enron fell into bankruptcy in late 2001, Skilling had at various times been COO, president and CEO of the company. A jury in 2006 found Skilling guilty on one count of conspiracy (a joint count with Chairman Kenneth Lay), 12 counts of securities fraud, one count of insider trading and five counts of making false statements to auditors and Enron shareholders (see NGI, May 29, 2006). He was acquitted on nine counts of insider trading. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans in January upheld all of Skilling’s 19 convictions, and a month later the full circuit court rejected a request for rehearing (see NGI, Feb. 16). The appeals court, however, ordered that Skilling be resentenced, which could reduce his prison term of 24 years and four months. The resentencing has not been completed, and until then Skilling is serving his sentence in a federal prison in Minnesota. The New Orleans appeals court said four months ago that Skilling had “failed to demonstrate that the government’s case rested on an incorrect theory of law or that any reversible errors infected his trial.” In its appeal to the Supreme Court, the defense team argues that under a federal fraud statute, prosecutors failed to show that Skilling wanted to advance his interests rather than those of Enron. The defense also contends that pretrial publicity prejudiced the jury and led to an unfair trial. The trial was held in Houston where Enron was headquartered. The Supreme Court could decide to hear or not hear the case before the court’s term is completed this summer.

Source: Quarterly financial reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or if necessary, statements signed by company officials and provided to NGI.

The question of what to do about millions of dollars in refunds from the 2000-2001 energy crisis was passed back to FERC last Thursday by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals with instructions to regulators to reconsider their decision in conformance with a U.S. Supreme Court decision last June regarding the long-term power contracts (see NGI, June 30).

Demand for natural gas in the Pacific Northwest will remain flat, trending slightly downward from the 2000-2001 wholesale energy market meltdown, but volatility will continue to be an issue for some utilities and their largest customers, according to a preliminary 2007 gas demand outlook from the Northwest Gas Association.

In a move that essentially keeps all of the major energy suppliers in California during the wholesale market meltdown in 2000-2001 at risk in pending litigation, California Superior Court Judge Ronald Prager in San Diego County ruled Tuesday against Dallas-based TXU Corp.’s contention that it should not be included in a series of 27 civil cases that have been consolidated in the judge’s court. Prager oversaw the multi-billion-dollar class action lawsuit against Sempra Energy and its two California natural gas utilities that was settled earlier in the year in the midst of a jury trial.