Background

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is ordering water treatment plants in the state to immediately test for radioactivity and other contaminants from Marcellus Shale wastewater.

Former Fluor Corp. CEO Alan Boeckmann has been elected to the Sempra Energy board of directors, bringing a background in international business management in the engineering/construction sector. Boeckmann is a director of BHP Billiton and a board member of the National Petroleum Council. He also serves as the nonexecutive chairman of the board at Fluor, where he held several senior management and operating positions before becoming CEO in 2002.

On the eve of the official start of the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season, with the remote possibility of the birth of Tropical Storm Barry in the background, prices were close to flat in most cases Thursday. The primary exceptions were larger losses of up to about half a dollar at some points in the Rockies and at Westcoast Station 2 in Western Canada.

One of the nation’s largest merchant energy marketers, recently renamed and publicly held Commerce Energy Group, Inc., Monday named a new CEO with an extensive energy background, Steven S. Boss. He will bring along a new chief financial officer following last week’s removal of the president/CEO and CFO at the Southern California-based firm.

In an attempt to short-circuit a bitter proxy battle by disgruntled investors, El Paso Corp. on Monday nominated a slate of directors that is heavy in energy experience for shareholders to vote on at the company’s upcoming annual meeting in June.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission revealed Thursday a previously confidential report it completed before entering into a refund and consent agreement with Williams Energy Marketing and Trading Co. for its management of AES Corp. generating capacity last year. The settlement came after the Commission had issued a show cause order accusing the two companies of withholding generating capacity to drive up power prices in California (see Daily GPI, May 2, 2001).

Enron Corp. and Dynegy Corp. remained mum on whether a merger deal was imminent late Thursday, but in the background, the investment community began digesting the possibility that the smaller Dynegy, which has stuck to a path of high-quality asset acquisition to accompany its modest trading arm, could sit at the same table money-wise with Enron, well known for shedding acquisitions as fast as it has amassed the largest trading and marketing business in the world. Now, however, Enron faces a credibility problem larger than its operations, and has begun to slowly dish out details of its complex financial operations before it sheds even more assets or is consumed by another company.