Amends

President Bush Friday signed into law the “Pipeline Inspection, Protection, Enforcement and Safety Act of 2006,” which reauthorizes and amends the Department of Transportation’s pipeline safety programs, including establishing new civil penalties for third-party excavators that fail to follow the nationwide one-call program and cause damage to pipelines.

The Alberta government has enacted an amendment to its natural gas royalty regulations in an effort to compensate gas producers who were forced to shut in production from the Wabiskaw-McMurray formation in the Athabasca Oil Sands Area of northeastern Alberta because of the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board (AEUB) bitumen conservation decisions.

The Alberta government has enacted an amendment to its natural gas royalty regulation in an effort to compensate gas producers who were forced to shut in production from the Wabiskaw-McMurray formation in the Athabasca Oil Sands Area of northeastern Alberta because of the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board (AEUB) bitumen conservation decisions.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has amended its large trader reporting rules, raising the number of open interest transactions for firms to qualify as large traders whose positions must be reported to the CFTC. The final rule, published in the Federal Register Dec. 21 (p. 76392), covers a laundry list of indexes and commodities, including natural gas.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has amended its large trader reporting rules, raising the number of open interest transactions for firms to qualify as large traders whose positions must be reported to the CFTC. The final rule, published in the Federal Register Dec. 21 (p. 76392) covers a laundry list of indexes and commodities, including natural gas.

The sale of natural gas in Nova Scotia will remain open to competition. However, now the distributor will be allowed to sell natural gas directly during a seven-year development period — and others may market natural gas as well. Also, large industrial users will be able to connect directly with an offshore supply of gas before it goes into the Maritimes and Northeast pipeline.

The bill amends existing law to authorize the railroad to issue bonds to finance the construction and maintenance of a gas line and related facilities for transporting natural gas from Alaska’s North Slope. It also authorizes the railroad to negotiate with producers of natural gas on the bond issue.

The New Power Co., part of a venture formed last year by Enron Corp., America Online and IBM, on Friday filed a Form 8-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reporting that it has revised its master netting agreement with Enron North America Corp., Enron Energy Services Inc. and Enron Power Marketing Inc. that affects the type of collateral that the company will be permitted to post to the Enron subsidiaries.

New York Board of Trade reached an agreement last week to “makewhole” all floor operators whose funds were used to meet marginobligations of Klein and Co. Futures Inc. NYBOT said it will payback the innocent traders and customers of Klein. NYBOT’s decisioncame not long after the New York Mercantile Exchange and 15 of itsmembers filed a class action complaint against NYBOT, New YorkClearing Corp. (NYCC) and Klein, alleging that NYBOT improperlyused funds of Klein customers who also traded Nymex energy, oil andmetals contracts to satisfy obligations of an unrelated Kleincustomer on the New York Futures Exchange, a unit of NYBOT.