Authorized

Chevron Corp. CEO Dave O’Reilly on Tuesday called on the federal government to conduct an updated inventory of key areas in the Outer Continental Shelf, as authorized in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. If the results indicate the potential is there, he said, leasing programs to evaluate the resources should begin.

Rates charged to customers of Columbia Gas of Virginia for delivery service are frozen for four years under a performance-based rate (PBR) plan authorized by the State Corporation Commission (SCC) late last month. The new rate plan took effect Jan. 1 and includes a $2 million credit back to residential and commercial customers in 2007 and again in 2008.

In passing up an authorized 6% rate hike for some of its customers to begin the new year, Southern California Edison Co. said its latest forecasts call for lower and stabilized wholesale natural gas costs, and that is the main driver in its assessment that its retail power rates will remain unchanged in 2007. Edison’s revenue/tariffs vice president, Akbar Jazayeri, outlined the utility’s assessment for Daily GPI in a brief interview Wednesday.

Following a mandate from state regulators who authorized increased funding, Sempra Energy’s Southern California Gas Co. announced Thursday that it was expanding its energy efficiency programs for businesses, permitting qualifying customers to obtain up to $300,000 annually in rebates for cutting energy waste in their facilities and operations. In addition, for the first time, the SoCalGas programs are open to the utility’s largest industrial customers.

Although they agreed to review next year the methodology used in calculating authorized profit levels for the energy utilities they oversee, California’s five regulators Thursday unanimously agreed to increase returns-on-equity (ROE) for the three major electric or combination utilities. The action drew a lot of commentary from the five members of the California Public Utilities Commission, which reviews the utilities’ so-called “cost-of-capital” annually at the end of each calendar year.

Signaling that its policy on liquefied natural gas (LNG) is “unchanged” under the new FERC administration, the Commission on Thursday authorized Occidental Petroleum’s Ingleside, TX, LNG terminal and associated San Patricio Pipeline. The agency said the 1 Bcf/d terminal, which would be located near Occidental’s chemical plant on Corpus Christi Bay, was in the public interest and would have limited adverse impact on the environment given certain recommended mitigation by the company.

Tired of watching Wyoming natural gas underselling the overall market, the state has authorized up to $1 billion in borrowing authority to fund construction of natural gas pipelines to deliver Wyoming gas to market.

Tired of watching Wyoming natural gas underselling the overall market, the state has authorized up to $1 billion in borrowing authority to fund construction of natural gas pipelines to deliver Wyoming gas to market.

TXU Corp.’s exit from Europe last fall pushed the Dallas-based utility to huge fourth quarter losses, with the write off of $4.2 billion on its failed investments overseas. However, management said it would “aggressively” refocus on North American and Australian assets going forward, estimating its growth “beyond” 2003 would be in the range of 4-6%.