Collective

As states proceed with a collective effort to buy natural gas vehicles (NGV) for government fleets, Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead on Tuesday warned that state efforts to stimulate the spread of alternative fuel vehicles should not get “ahead of the private sector.”

While U.S. energy interests in the Gulf of Mexico and on the coast sighed a collective breath of relief Tuesday, their counterparts in Mexico were not as lucky as Category 5 Hurricane Dean slammed the Yucatan Peninsula and threatened the country’s offshore energy infrastructure. Even though the U.S. dodged this bullet, some forecasters warned there were likely a number of other storms to come in the next few months.

As a whole, U.S. utilities (energy and water) last year struck more of a balance in their collective credit ratings, but credit rating downgrades dominated again, according to the annual survey for 2005 by Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services. S&P recorded 46 downgrades in 2005, compared to 36 upgrades; in the fourth quarter the ratio was 19 downgrades to 9 upgrades.

Calpine Corp. and the independent power industry hope to catch their collective breath over the holiday week after the power plant poster child charts a new future in its $27 billion Chapter 11 bankruptcy in federal court in lower Manhattan, not far from Wall Street where it once basked in a Google-like aura in the late 1990s.

The industry was keeping its collective fingers crossed Friday as it watched the potentially destructive Hurricane Dennis eventually land in south-central Cuba on its way to the eastern Gulf of Mexico (GOM). The situation kept prices on the rise in most of the East. Except for a few flat to as much as 20 cents higher points, western markets tended to be weaker overall, with losses ranging up to about 30 cents.

While most of the independent power sector and California state officials will be holding their collective breath until the end of the upcoming summer, for the short term western electric industry stakeholders are focused on early April for the final assessment of what likely will happen and how much extra demand-side management will be needed to avoid blackouts, particularly in the southern half of California.

Powder River Basin producers breathed a collective sigh of relief after the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) issued its long awaited final decision on the environmental impact of a massive increase in coalbed methane drilling in the basin in Wyoming and Montana.

Powder River Basin producers breathed a collective sigh of relief after the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) issued its long awaited final decision on the environmental impact of a massive increase in coalbed methane drilling in the basin in Wyoming and Montana. About 14,300 wells already have been drilled on the Wyoming side of the basin, but producers needed BLM authorization to move forward with a 10-year plan to drill another 39,400 gas wells. In Montana, the BLM looked at the potential of more than 26,000 wells across the entire state.

Investors in Allegheny Energy no doubt breathed a collective sigh of relief last Tuesday after the company and its Allegheny Energy Supply Co. said that they have entered into agreements with lenders on new and restructured credit facilities totaling $2.4 billion.