Call

While the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) continues to call for a warmer-than-normal winter, Andover, MA-based WSI Corp. said Tuesday that it expects December-February to average cooler-than-normal temperatures in the major cities along the East Coast, with warmer than normal readings expected across the western two-thirds of the U.S. The WSI seasonal outlooks reference a standard 30-year norm (1971-2000).

The American Gas Association (AGA) has begun running radio ads in the Washington, DC area that call on Congress to pass during the lame-duck session legislation opening the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) to more oil and natural gas drilling. The fate of an offshore drilling bill, however, remained uncertain as lawmakers returned to Capitol Hill Monday.

Following up on its call late last month for legislation that would close a “substantial part” of a regulatory loophole by giving the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) oversight of the over-the-counter (OTC) energy electronic trading market (see NGI, Oct. 2), the Industrial Energy Consumers of America (IECA) on Friday asked FERC to get involved and to investigate the facts surrounding the downfall of hedge fund Amaranth Advisors LLC in September.

Following up on its call late last month for legislation that would close a “substantial part” of a regulatory loophole by giving the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) oversight of the over-the-counter (OTC) energy electronic trading market (see Daily GPI, Sept. 27), the Industrial Energy Consumers of America (IECA) on Friday asked FERC to get involved and to investigate the facts surrounding the downfall of hedge fund Amaranth Advisors LLC in September.

Faced with a deadening silence from Capitol Hill on the fate of offshore legislation, a group of industrial energy consumers has renewed its call for the Senate and House to quickly reconcile the differences in their two Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) leasing bills so that a legislative package can be approved before Congress adjourns later this month.

Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski most likely won’t call another special session of the legislature this month to try and move the proposed natural gas pipeline forward, essentially leaving the issue to his successor.

Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski, soundly defeated in his state’s Republican primary last week, said he will call the Legislature into special session one more time, possibly next month, in an attempt to turn his dream of commercializing Alaska natural gas from pipe dream to reality before he leaves office.

Call it “storm hype” if you will, but there was no doubt that the ominously growing threat to Gulf of Mexico production from then-Tropical Depression Five (upgraded to Tropical Storm Ernesto Friday afternoon, well after cash trading had finished) was a major reason why prices increased at a sizeable majority of points Friday.

Soaring power demand records far in excess of what was projected this year in many regions should be a wake up call that a new power market crisis could be developing right under our noses, according to a white paper from Pace Global Energy Services, a Fairfax, VA-based energy services and consulting firm.