Adjustments

RAM Energy Resources Inc. has sold its North Texas Barnett Shale and Boonsville properties to Milagro Producing LLC for $43.7 million in cash, prior to adjustments.

North American operators are continuing to shift from conventional natural gas plays “to oil and shales, particularly the gas and condensate plays,” which puts Weatherford International Ltd. in a particularly strong position, CEO Bernard Duroc-Danner said Tuesday.

Following state regulators’ request to switch from monthly adjustments, Xcel Energy’s Colorado utility said Thursday it is starting to adjust its retail rates on a quarterly basis to reflect changes in the wholesale cost of natural gas beginning with the fourth quarter. As a result, the utility is projecting that its monthly gas bills during the last quarter will be 7-9% lower than they were in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Tennessee Pipeline shippers are urging FERC to make certain adjustments for replacement shippers under the agency’s Order 712, which lifted the price ceiling on short-term releases of natural gas transportation capacity.

Tennessee Pipeline shippers are urging FERC to make certain adjustments for replacement shippers under the agency’s Order 712, which lifted the price ceiling on short-term releases of natural gas transportation capacity.

Under a controversial state law passed three years ago (SB 408), the Oregon Public Utility Commission (PUC) made its first across-the-board rate adjustments late last Friday for the state’s four major private-sector utilities. This theoretically matches the tax bills paid by the utilities with the amounts they collect in retail utility rates to pay for them.

As part of a full energy agenda last Thursday, the California Public Utilities Commission authorized Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to make adjustments in past and current revenue requirements to avoid any cost-shifting between utility bundled customers and direct-access customers buying their own power supplies. Another decision tied to the PG&E utility’s 2003 general rate case adjusted revenue requirements for both electric and gas utility customers to modify utility pension fund contributions in those rates.

OGE Energy Corp.’s Enogex subsidiary completed the sale of Enogex Arkansas Pipeline Co. (EAPC) to Atlas Pipeline Partners for $173 million subject to adjustments. EAPC was the wholly owned subsidiary of Enogex that held a 75% stake in the NOARK pipeline system. The transaction was first announced in September. Atlas now holds all the interests of EAPC. Enogex will use $32 million of the proceeds to repay debt associated with NOARK. The balance is expected to be used to pay down short term debt and to purchase strategic assets to diversify Enogex’s asset base, OGE said. The transaction is expected to provide an after-tax gain of slightly more than $50 million for Enogex. NOARK owns the 565-mile Ozark Gas Transmission (OGT) system, which extends from southeastern Oklahoma through Arkansas to southeastern Missouri. It also includes a 365-mile intrastate gas-gathering system known as Ozark Gas Gathering, located in eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas. OGT has throughput capacity of 322,000 Dth/d and currently transports 202,200 Dth/d. The gathering system has about 400 receipt points and currently gathers about 36 MMcf/d. Atlas said the purchase will be immediately accretive to distributable cash flow.

EnCana closed its $2 billion sale of Gulf of Mexico assets to Statoil, netting $1.45 billion after taxes and other adjustments, the company said Thursday, noting that its total investment in the assets was only $540 million. EnCana said its previously-announced divestiture of its Ecuador assets and select conventional producing properties in Western Canada should go through later this year.