Assurances

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has not provided assurances that fees won’t be assessed on nonproducing leases being held up by the federal government, said the ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

The American Petroleum Institute (API) said last Tuesday that it welcomed the House Democratic leadership’s assurances that it would not reinstate the moratorium on oil and natural gas drilling in the federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS).

The American Petroleum Institute (API) said Tuesday that it welcomed the House Democratic leadership’s assurances that it would not reinstate the moratorium on oil and natural gas drilling in the federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS).

Alaska’s three North Slope producers — BP, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips — hemmed and hawed about taxes and fiscal assurances under the state’s gasline framework, all but turning up their noses at the process. But industry watchers were pretty much counting on an application from pipeline giant MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co.

Alaska’s three North Slope producers — BP, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips — hemmed and hawed about taxes and fiscal assurances under the state’s gasline framework, all but turning up their noses at the process. But industry watchers were pretty much counting on an application from pipeline giant MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co.

The Senate had barely begun debate on the omnibus energy bill last week when Florida senators won assurances from the leaders of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that they would oppose all efforts to relax the congressional moratorium on oil and natural gas drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) or open up Lease 181 in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

A grid operation simulation that took place last week in California will help provide assurances to the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) that power that has been contracted by electric utilities in the state will actually be able to be delivered to the California grid this summer, Anjali Sheffrin, CAISO’s market analysis director, said last Wednesday.

Three utilities serving Idaho asked state regulators last week for stricter limits on what customers qualify for a three-month winter moratorium on service disconnections for nonpayment. Fearing growing unpaid bill write-offs in the spring, the utilities want stricter income and repayment guidelines.

A standard market design (SMD) for U.S. power markets, which FERC is set to unveil for comments next week, will hopefully go a long way in offering clear “rules of the road” to energy market participants nervous about whether they will be able to recoup money they put into the development of new generation assets, FERC Chairman Pat Wood told federal lawmakers on Wednesday.