Change

El Paso Corp. has rescheduled a special meeting to vote on its merger with Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI) to Friday (March 9) from Tuesday (March 6). The change was made to allow shareholders additional time to consider and and possibly recast their vote following the Delaware Chancery Court opinion rendered in Case No. 6949-CS (see Daily GPI, March 2). Delaware Chancellor Leo Stine said he would not stop El Paso shareholders from voting on the proposed takeover by KMI but he said they likely had cause to file lawsuits because the merger was “tainted by disloyalty” and “disturbing” behavior by El Paso CEO Doug Foshee and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. In addition, since El Paso mailed its definitive proxy statement for the special meeting in late January, the company has agreed to sell the exploration and production business, EP Energy Corp., to affiliates that include Apollo Global Management LLC and Riverstone Holdings LLC, a deal that is tied to the KMI merger (see Daily GPI, Feb. 27). According to proxy solicitor MacKenzie Partners Inc., as of March 2 about 70% of El Paso’s outstanding shares had been voted in connection with the KMI transaction, with more than 98.5% voting in favor of the proposal to adopt the merger agreement. The special meeting is to be held at 9 a.m. CT at the Hyatt Regency Houston, 1200 Louisiana St., Houston.

A recent settlement of a case involving one of the first shale gas wells in the Delaware River Basin will change the way future Marcellus Shale wells are permitted in that region.

WPX Energy, newly spun off from Williams, is having to rethink its first full year as an exploration and production (E&P) company because of sustained low natural gas prices, the company said late Monday.

The proposed Kinder Morgan Inc. acquisition of El Paso Corp. doesn’t change Calgary, Alberta-based TransCanada Corp.’s strategy that is divided among natural gas, including shale; oil through its proposed addition to Keystone XL pipeline; and a growing gas-fired and renewable-based power generation business, CEO Russ Girling told financial analysts Tuesday as TransCanada reported a robust quarter-over-quarter improvement in profits for the third quarter.

U.S. shale natural gas production today is half the size of the global liquefied natural gas (LNG) business, which doesn’t bode well for those with designs on imports but is a positive for proposed export facilities, the Houston-based chief of Gazprom Marketing & Trading USA (GM&T) said Monday.

The market for on-site generation on an industrial scale will change over the next five years, but natural gas will remain a major factor even though its proportional share of combined heat/power (CHP) systems will decline, according to a report by Colorado-based Pike Research, “Industrial Distributed Generation.”

September natural gas retreated Tuesday as traders factored in a mild change in the temperature outlook. At the close September had fallen 3.3 cents to $4.155 and October had eased 3.4 cents to $4.156. September crude oil fell $1.10 to $93.79/bbl.

Arthur Brisbane, who acts as the “readers’ representative,” wrote an opinion piece in the Sunday Times following accusations by critics that the newspaper and reporter Ian Urbina had used “fear mongering” to criticize the industry, comparing it to a “Ponzi” scheme with a future like Enron Corp. or the dot-com bubble (see Shale Daily, June 28). Brisbane researched the methods used by the reporter and editors and followed up with his commentary.

The House Financial Services Committee last Tuesday voted out amended legislation that would change the implementation deadline for certain Title VII derivative reforms in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act to Sept. 30, 2012.