Belt

Youngstown, OH, long a Rust Belt poster child, now is watching the phoenix-like revival of its flagship steel plant, Youngstown Iron Sheet & Tube, thanks to the Utica and Marcellus shales. The 100-year old plant, once one of largest in the world before it foundered in the 1970s collapse of the nation’s steel industry, will be making steel pipe to serve the state’s burgeoning shale gas and oil development.

With one week of trading under its belt, The Green Exchange (TGE), which offers a range of environmental futures and options contracts, reported “strong” trading in its initial slate of products, according to the exchange’s backers. Trade volume in TGE’s carbon contracts alone totaled 1.59 million metric tons, making it the most successful launch of exchange-traded carbon contracts.

With one week of trading under its belt, The Green Exchange (TGE), which offers a range of environmental futures and options contracts, reported “strong” trading in its initial slate of products, according to the exchange’s backers. Trade volume in TGE’s carbon contracts alone totaled 1.59 million metric tons, making it the most successful launch of exchange-traded carbon contracts.

With last weekend’s on-schedule opening of approximately 500 miles of Rockies Express-West (REX-West) under their belt, pipeline officials have set their sights on two more milestones in the epic project: reviving a long-shelved idea with Kinder Morgan’s Natural Gas Pipeline Co. of America (NGPL) to serve Chicago and opening REX’s Northeast Express.

Duke Energy Corp. told employees last week that poor market conditions affecting its merchant energy operations and milder weather that has negatively impacted its North Carolina utility sales will force the company to take additional cost cutting measures this year, including possible job reductions and project delays, in order to meet its earnings per share target of $1.35-60 in 2003.

Duke Energy Corp. told employees this week that poor market conditions affecting its merchant energy operations and milder weather that has negatively impacted its North Carolina utility sales will force the company to take additional cost cutting measures this year, including possible job reductions and project delays, in order to meet its earnings per share target of $1.35-60 in 2003.

The saturated power market and significant downsizing and belt tightening among merchant energy companies will result in a sharp decline in the number of gas-fired power plants added to the market over the rest of the decade. “The construction boom is finally nearing its end,” Virginia-based consulting firm Energy and Environmental Analysis Inc. (EEA) said in its latest Monthly Gas Update.

The saturated power market and significant downsizing and belt tightening among merchant energy companies will result in a sharp decline in the number of gas-fired power plants added to the market over the rest of the decade. “The construction boom is finally nearing its end,” Virginia-based consulting firm Energy and Environmental Analysis Inc. (EEA) said in its latest Monthly Gas Update.

With barely six months under his belt in a six-year appointment,one of California Gov. Gray Davis’ two new state regulatorycommissioners, Joel Hyatt, announced this week that he will resignin January to be replaced by a current top-level Davis cabinetmember, Loretta Lynch, 37, an attorney who heads Davis’planning/research office in Sacramento.