Benefit

El Paso Corp. plans to restate its 4Q2003 and year-end 2003 consolidated statement of income to reclassify a deferred tax benefit related to its discontinued Canadian exploration and production operations. The restatement will not impact 2003 net income, earnings before income and taxes or cash flow, and will have no impact on financial statements for 2002 and 2004. It does increase the loss per share from continuing operations to $1.01/share from 87 cents/share. The Canadian E&P operations were classified as discontinued operations in 2004, and under generally accepted accounting principles, the financial statements for 2003 and 2002 were revised to reclassify revenue and expenses for these operations from continuing to discontinued operations. The revision, said El Paso, should have included an additional $82 million of deferred tax benefits associated with the sale that was reported in continuing operations in El Paso’s recently filed 2004 annual report on Form 10-K.

Some large gas consumers have placed the blame for current high natural gas futures prices and market volatility on speculative fund trading, but according to two veteran brokers without the funds in the market currently gas futures prices probably would go up even more.

Several of the leading North American-focused oil and gas producers reported strong quarterly earnings on Wednesday, with three out of four — ConocoPhillips, Amerada Hess and Kerr-McGee — up on higher commodity prices. However, even though EnCana’s earnings were off compared with a year ago, it far and away took the honors in higher natural gas production.

Questar Corp. raised its earnings guidance for the year and reported a 23% increase in net income to $28.7 million, or 34/cents per diluted share, for third-quarter on much higher realized gas prices.

Questar Corp. shares (STR) rose nearly 2% Wednesday morning to $32.02 at noon after the company raised its earnings guidance for the year and reported a 23% increase in net income to $28.7 million, or 34/cents per diluted share, for third-quarter on much higher realized gas prices.

With its primarily coal-fired fleet of power plants, American Electric Power (AEP) stands to gain from the recent surge in natural gas prices, a top executive with the Ohio-based electric power company told an audience of investment professionals on Wednesday.

This year will mark the most significant one-year increase in average drilling depth that the United States has ever seen, as producers look beyond the more mature natural gas fields, according to Raymond James Stat of the Week on Monday. Recent gas production data confirms that the country faces a difficult task to produce more gas, which in turn will lead to a boom in business for oil service companies, poised to gain as demand for services increases with well depth.

DTE Energy Co. clarified its 2001 earnings predictions on Friday to include restructuring impacts and goodwill amortization related to its recently completed merger with MCN Energy Group, saying it expected “significant variations in quarterly earnings” because of the suspension of fuel and purchased-power cost recovery as part of Michigan’s restructuring legislation in 2000, but expected earnings to remain on track.

Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. began an open season on its new Northeast ConneXion Project Monday, which would expand both its storage and pipeline capacity for its northeast markets. The storage expansion of up to 5 Bcf could provide as much as 300,000 Dth/d of incremental deliverability and will serve as the base load for the pipeline expansion. The non-binding open season ends May 31.