Alone

Houston-based Spectra Energy Corp., which comprises the former natural gas businesses of Duke Energy, became a stand-alone, publicly traded company Tuesday, emerging as one of the leading pure-play gas midstream companies in North America. The company’s stock will begin regular trading Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol SE.

The world is not running out of energy, but it’s unlikely that conventional oil and natural gas resources alone will be sufficient to meet the anticipated growth in global energy demand through 2030, the National Petroleum Council (NPC) said in a major report issued last week.

Rep. Timothy Bishop (D-NY) plans to introduce stand-alone legislation in the near term to ban the construction of facilities in estuaries of national significance, such as Broadwater Energy LLC’s controversial deepwater liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal that is proposed for Long Island Sound, a spokesman said.

Ex-Enron Corp. CEO Jeffrey Skilling will be standing alone when he’s sentenced in Houston on Monday. U.S. District Judge Sim Lake, who presided over the four-month trial of Skilling and Enron founder Kenneth Lay, will pass the sentence, which experts expect to range between 20 and 30 years.

The new GOP-crafted compromise on oil and gas leasing in the eastern Gulf of Mexico will be introduced as stand-alone legislation in the Senate later this month, according to a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN). It will not serve, as some expected, as a vehicle for other unrelated energy measures that could weigh down the bill in the legislative process.

A stand-alone bill to open the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil and gas drilling passed the U.S. House Thursday on a vote of 225 to 201. However, the vote was largely symbolic as drilling backers don’t have the Senate votes to overcome a filibuster.

A stand-alone bill to open the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil and gas drilling passed the U.S. House Thursday on a vote of 225 to 201.

A stand-alone, comprehensive natural gas bill offered in the Senate Wednesday that potentially could give producers greater access to offshore areas is of “historic significance,” said an official with a major industrial consumer group.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee, last Wednesday said a stand-alone natural gas measure aimed at bolstering supply and roping in prices is still a possibility in the new Congress.