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California’s Gov. Gray Davis Tuesday prepared for the New Year by re-appointing Michael Peevey, 64, to the California Public Utilities Commission and appointing his current cabinet secretary, Susan Kennedy, 42, to another spot on the five-member CPUC. Both are appointed to six-year terms and their new positions are subject to state Senate confirmation.

The answer to the question of how many lawsuits can be aimed at one natural gas supplier, El Paso Natural Gas, came to the fore again Monday, and the answer: nobody knows! The lawsuits seem to continue unabated, with the latest being Nevada’s state consumer advocate in its attorney general’s office suing the Houston-based pipeline company for “perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars.”

The answer to the question of how many lawsuits can be aimed at one natural gas supplier, El Paso Natural Gas, came to the fore again Monday, and the Answer: nobody knows! The lawsuits seem to continue unabated, with the latest being Nevada’s state consumer advocate in its attorney general’s office suing the Houston-based pipeline company for “perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Monday’s huge surge of cash bullishness came to a near-standstill Tuesday, and several NGI sources indicated they expect a gradual price slide to begin Wednesday. Other than moderate increases in the Northeast, Rockies/Pacific Northwest and California and stronger gains in Western Canada, most points were flat to less than a nickel higher Tuesday (a few scattered small declines also were part of the mix).

Bidding for turned-back capacity on El Paso Natural Gas came to a close at 8 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time) Friday, despite a last-minute plea by a group of full-requirements (FR) shippers for FERC to postpone the closing deadline, and a challenge by California regulators and utilities to El Paso’s decision to give FR shippers preferential access to the capacity. The bidding was seen as a critical first step in the FERC-ordered plan to convert all of the FR shippers on El Paso to contract-demand (CD) service by Nov. 1 of this year, and end a years-long dispute over the disparate manner in which capacity has been allocated on the pipeline.

Tossing aside arguments by an Arizona regulatory commission representative who came to San Francisco to articulate his state’s case, California regulators Thursday unanimously agreed to adopt proposed rules for mandating that the state’s major gas and electric utilities bid to keep up to 725 MMcf/d of firm capacity on El Paso Natural Gas serving the state to prevent it from being shifted to neighboring Arizona.

Offshore liquefied natural gas (LNG) and compressed natural gas (CNG) terminals came closer to reality last Tuesday with the passage of H.R. 3983 by the House of Representatives. If the Maritime Transportation Antiterrorism Act of 2002 becomes law in its current form, among other things it would allow the Department of Transportation to license offshore port facilities for both LNG and CNG, an option currently reserved only for oil.

The proposed merger between Potomac Electric Power Co. and Conectiv came one step closer to becoming a reality last Tuesday after the Delaware Public Service Commission (PSC) voted to approve the transaction.

The past came back to haunt Houston-based EOG Resources Inc. in the fourth quarter, after it was snagged with a $19.2 million charge related to former parent Enron Corp. EOG reported a net loss of $27.6 million, or 24 cents a share, compared with net income of $158.7 million, or $1.33 a share, for the fourth quarter of 2000. The charges related just to Enron cost EOG 11 cents a share, estimated at $12.3 million after taxes.