Auctions

The U.S. Department of the Interior on Monday signed off on a plan that would allow oil and gas leasing in a swath of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska, a move that invited praise from proponents but swift vows of legal action from environmentalists. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said officials were acting…

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) said it conducted 31 onshore oil and natural gas auctions in fiscal year (FY) 2012, generating $233 million for U.S. taxpayers. In the FY 2012 lease sales, BLM estimated that it received bids on more than 1.4 million acres of public land in 1,707 parcels. It offered 2,315 parcels of land (covering six million acres) during the year, which is 32% more than in 2011 and 41% more than in 2010. The largest onshore oil and gas sale during FY 2012 was held in Billings, MT, in which 59 parcels covering 14,762 acres of public land brought in more than $36 million at an average price of $2,437/acre. BLM has scheduled 33 oil and gas lease sales in FY 2013, including in California, Colorado, the eastern states, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming and Alaska. Revenues from domestic output on public lands and federal offshore areas, totaling more than $12 billion this year, are shared among federal, state and tribal governments and represent one of the largest nontax sources of U.S. government funds. Revenue generated by BLM’s onshore parcels has more than tripled in the past three years, compared to the last 25 years, the agency said. Since 1988, the average price paid per acre was $55, while over the past three years the average has climbed to $210/acre. Moreover, the percentage of leases protested declined in FY 2012, continuing a trend that began in 2009. Protests were lodged on fewer than 18% of the parcels offered for sale during the year, the lowest percentage since 2003.

Alliance Pipeline has agreed to pay a civil penalty of $500,000 for violating FERC regulations with respect to capacity auctions two years ago, specifically giving shippers a misleading impression about the amount of unsubscribed capacity on its system.

TransCanada Corp. is predicting that a plan for reversing the upward spiral in long-distance tolls on its natural gas mainline will emerge by the end of the year.

TransCanada Corp. is predicting that a plan for reversing the upward spiral in long-distance tolls on its natural gas mainline will emerge by the end of the year.

KNG Energy, Inc., a Findlay, OH-based natural gas pipeline company, has signed an agreement with EnergyGateway to auction portions of its intrastate pipeline capacity running across northern Ohio, connecting with Crossroads Pipeline in the west and Columbia Gas of Ohio and Dominion East Ohio in the east.

Kinder Morgan’s Natural Gas Pipeline Company of America (NGPL)moved a step closer to fulfilling its year-and-a-half-old promiseto FERC yesterday, with the announcement that Akili, an e-businesscompany, has moved into an application and development phase of theonline capacity auction project for the pipeline system. The targetcompletion date of the auction application is mid-March, Akilisaid.

Dynegy Inc. is the only gas-related company so far to publiclypropose an alternative to FERC’s notice of proposed rulemaking(NOPR) that seeks to institute industry-wide auctioning ofshort-term capacity in return for lifting the price cap on thatcapacity. “There’s nothing else that’s been made public,” saidPeter G. Esposito, vice president and regulatory counsel.

Consolidated Edison Co. of New York yesterday began auctioningoff all its fossil-fired generating stations located in New YorkCity. The assets up for sale total about 5,500 MWs of capacity andhave been divided into three groups, or bundles, with each to besold separately to third parties as part of the state’s effort topromote a competitive electric industry.