Always

After completing 27 mergers and acquisitions in 15 years, Devon Energy Corp. always thought it had a surplus of people, but those coming in the door masked the exodus of early retirees and others. Now, with 10% of Devon’s workforce eligible for early retirement and nearly 60% eligible to leave within 10 years, the producer is joining its peers to step up recruiting and retention efforts.

After completing 27 mergers and acquisitions in 15 years, Devon Energy Corp. always had a surplus of people, but the “new” people masked a problem that began to surface about two years ago, the company’s manager of project support said Wednesday. Ten percent of Devon’s workforce now is eligible for early retirement and nearly 60% will be eligible to leave within 10 years, and the producer now is stepping up its recruitment and retention program.

The new Congress wasted little time in taking action on the energy issue that always seems to draw the most headlines: drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska. Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) was joined by Rep. Jim Ramstad (R-MN) in introducing the Udall-Eisenhower Arctic Wilderness Act, which would designate the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as a wilderness area with permanent protections.

Surprise, surprise! A screen spike nearly always leads to higher next-day cash prices, and Wednesday’s record-high daily settlement for a prompt month would have seemed to have extra potency in its impact. But prices Thursday bowed instead to generally tepid weather fundamentals and to growing indications that Hurricane Katrina will not make it to the eastern end of the Gulf of Mexico production area and instead will be diminishing power generation load in the Southeast by early next week.

The dominant pipeline market in natural gas will always be regional, but companies’ strategic sights increasingly will be global, as the geographic dislocation of reserves to market is partly mitigated by new ways of linking stranded fields and customers, according to a report released on Wednesday by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC).

The dominant pipeline market in natural gas will always be regional, but companies’ strategic sights increasingly will be global, as the geographic dislocation of reserves to market is partly mitigated by new ways of linking stranded fields and customers, according to a report released on Wednesday by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC).

At a time when good news is not always easy to find, San Francisco-based PG&E Corp. late Thursday received belated word of a favorable ruling from a federal appeals court judge in its headquarters city, rejecting a suit from the California Attorney General’s Office related to keeping separate from its utility’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy the assets of the corporation and its other, non-utility companies.

The always interesting Pacific Northwest promised in the opening days of February to get even more interesting from a hydroelectric energy standpoint with a near-term “dumping” of cheap hydro supplies only to be followed by well-below-normal water runoffs in the spring, all of which adds up to the potential for higher wholesale power prices, exports and natural gas demand in the region, according to Boston-based consultant Energy Security Analysts Inc. (ESAI). The Western Energy Coordinating Council (WECC) flagged the ESAI analysis in its latest “market watch report.”

The ongoing turmoil in the energy industry and residue of California’s fiscal and energy-related struggles have made it harder on the state’s largest natural gas buyer — the California General Service Department’s gas aggregation program covers more than 100 government facilities scattered across the state. The deadline for bids for up to 5 Bcf of supplies over a five-year period starting April 2003 will conclude this week (Aug. 23).