2006

Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay and former CEO Jeffrey Skilling never broke the law, never stole any money and never lied to the public about hiding billions of dollars in losses, defense attorneys told jurors last week as the trial of the former top executives took center stage in Houston. The prosecution, however, relying on actual statements and an eyewitness, began to show how the ex-executives attempted to deceive the public in the months preceding Enron’s implosion.

The former chief of investor relations for Enron Corp. testified Wednesday that some quarterly earnings estimates in 1999 and 2000 were revised upward to meet analyst expectations. Mark Koenig, the first witness to take the stand in the trial of Enron founder Kenneth Lay and former CEO Jeffrey Skilling, is expected to testify for the next few days.

Gulfstream Natural Gas System LLC on Wednesday began a month-long, non-binding open season to determine market interest in a compression expansion of its pipeline network that primarily serves the Florida market.

Clean coal and natural gas-fired electric generation must be part of the energy mix in the Pacific Northwest, along with wind and hydro-electric sources, according to two regional industry executives speaking Thursday at an energy conference in Seattle. The power and natural gas sector’s continuing volatility is accompanied by robust growth that is an opportunity for coal and gas both, the speakers said.

Now at the $8+ level, natural gas prices have reached their alternative fuel (resid) floor and are unlikely to go much lower this winter unless the “extraordinarily warm” weather would continue right on through February, according to a market update presented at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) meeting Wednesday.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Thursday voted out a broad anti-market manipulation rule for the natural gas and electric power markets that is patterned after the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) regulation prohibiting manipulation and fraud in the securities industry.

Citing its high safety standards and concerns about gas supply in New England, FERC Thursday denied numerous requests for rehearing of two prior orders on the proposed Weaver’s Cove liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal in Fall River, MA, and KeySpan’s Providence LNG import terminal in Providence, RI. In July, the Commission had conditionally approved the Weaver’s Cove project but had rejected Providence LNG’s application based on safety concerns (see Daily GPI, May 23, 2005).

Pipeline/storage providers and certain large shippers believe an industry petition to award blanket certificate authorization to natural gas projects that traditionally have not been afforded such treatment — mainline pipeline expansions, new storage capacity and facilities related to liquefied natural gas (LNG) import projects — has merit and that FERC should move forward with it. But some customers, such as municipal gas utilities, have called on FERC to reject the proposal.

Westerners from Montana to New Mexico appear emboldened by a new Wyoming law giving more rights to property owners, and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is now reviewing longstanding “split estate” rules, where the surface rights are privately owned but the subsurface rights are publicly held. The issue is of particular concern in the Rocky Mountain states, where coalbed methane (CBM) exploration is expanding, and property owners see their land rights diminishing.