2008

The absence of funding in the Bush administration’s fiscal year 2008 budget for the office of a federal coordinator for the long-stalled Alaska natural gas pipeline project was not an oversight, but rather was intentional, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman told a Senate energy panel Wednesday.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Monday filed its budget for fiscal year 2008 seeking total funding of $255.4 million, up 12.4% from the $227.3 million that it was allotted last year.

Sempra Energy’s Southern California Gas Co. plans to offer its business customers what it is calling “extreme energy efficiency” services through 2008 that individually could save up to 250,000 therms annually. The utility has committed at least $2.4 million as part of a new Energy-Efficiency Grant Program.

The New York Mercantile Exchange Inc. (Nymex) announced Monday that it will list an option on the October 2007/January 2008 intermonth spread for natural gas calendar spread options contracts, beginning Tuesday. This is in addition to the current listing of 24 consecutive options on one-month spreads. Options on spreads between the first and third nearby months, the first and fourth nearby months, the second and fourth nearby months, as well as the spreads between the first nearby June to the first nearby December, first nearby December to first nearby June, the first nearby December to the second nearby December, first nearby October to the first nearby January, the first nearby April to the second nearby October and the first nearby October to the second nearby April contracts will continue to be listed for natural gas calendar spread options.

Construction has begun on a floating production facility for the deepwater Tahiti field in the Gulf of Mexico, and Chevron Corp. now expects first production by mid-2008, the company said Monday. The field, located in 4,000 feet of water, is believed to hold up to 400-500 million boe of potentially recoverable oil and natural gas.

In its “Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2003-2008” submitted to Congress, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last week outlined some of the new programs that it is planning to help spot incidents of market-power abuse more quickly and ensure more widespread compliance by energy companies with the agency rules and regulations.

In its “Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2003-2008” submitted to Congress, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission outlined some of the new programs that it is planning to help identify incidents of market-power abuse more quickly and ensure more widespread compliance by energy companies with the agency rules and regulations.

When natural gas prices were sky high a year ago, the “window looked wide open” for the long awaited Alaska natural gas pipe, which would carry supplies from the North Slope to the Lower 48, but realistically, “it’s never been a slam dunk,” said Ed Small, an analyst with Cambridge Energy Research Associates based in Canada. He also cautioned that producers will have to have the Alaskan government’s blessing on the chosen route, or it would be a “fatal flaw in the process.”