Conocophillips

Officials at Alaska’s Enstar Natural Gas Co. must go back to the negotiating table with producers ConocoPhillips and Marathon Oil to hammer out gas pricing terms more favorable to consumers in the state’s Southcentral region, state regulators ruled.

ConocoPhillips announced changes to senior management. Effective immediately, John Carrig, currently executive vice president, finance, and CFO, will become president and COO. He will continue to report to CEO Jim Mulva. Jim Gallogly, currently executive vice president, refining, marketing and transportation, will become executive vice president, exploration and production. Willie Chiang, currently senior vice president, commercial, will become senior vice president, refining, marketing and transportation. Greg Goff, currently president, strategy, integration and specialty businesses for refining, marketing and transportation, will become senior vice president, commercial. Ryan Lance will remain president, exploration and production for Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Gallogly, Chiang and Goff will report to Carrig.

Backers of the Denali Alaska gasline proposal — BP and ConocoPhillips — Wednesday received approval from FERC for the Commission’s pre-filing review process, which allows review of the project to begin prior to receipt of the Denali application.

Backers of the Denali Alaska gasline proposal — BP and ConocoPhillips — Wednesday received approval from FERC for the Commission’s pre-filing review process, which allows a review of the project to begin prior to receipt of the Denali application.

Backers of the Denali Alaska gasline proposal — BP and ConocoPhillips — have filed a request at FERC to use pre-filing procedures at the Commission, noting the project’s significant size and need for an expanded timeline for consideration.

Backers of the Denali Alaska gasline proposal — BP and ConocoPhillips — have filed a request at FERC to use pre-filing procedures at the Commission, noting the project’s significant size and need for an expanded timeline for consideration.

ConocoPhillips has big plans for North America exploration in 2008. So do BP plc, Chevron Corp., Royal Dutch Shell and Total — and that’s just the majors. But can the majors or the independents deliver on their ambitious exploration and production (E&P) plans in the coming year, faced with tighter credit, expensive development costs and a dwindling workforce? Some energy analysts don’t think it’s possible.

Houston-based Spectra Energy has signed a transportation agreement with ConocoPhillips to deliver up to 395 MMcf/d of Rocky Mountain natural gas from Clarington, OH, the eventual endpoint of the Rockies Express Pipeline (REX), to the Northeast by November 2010, the company said Wednesday.

ConocoPhillips expects its 1Q2008 production to be “slightly below” 1.8 million boe/d following an unplanned shutdown at a nonoperated gas processing plant in the San Juan Basin, which was complicated by cold weather. Output in the final quarter of 2007 was 1.84 million boe/d. The Houston-based major issued an interim update ahead of the April 24 scheduled release of quarterly results. The producer noted that in the first three months of this year, the average price of natural gas climbed 19% from the same period a year ago while crude oil prices surged 69%. Henry Hub first-of-month prices in 1Q2008 averaged $8.03/Mcf, compared with $6.77 in 1Q2007. Gas prices in 4Q2007 averaged $6.97/Mcf. Realized domestic refining and marketing margins for 1Q2008 are expected to be “significantly lower” than margins in 4Q2007 because of the absence of a quarterly inventory benefit, higher crude costs relative to benchmarks and lower margins. Conoco said the prices for its “secondary products,” such as fuel oil, natural gas liquids and petroleum coke “did not increase in proportion to the cost of the feedstocks to produce them.” Debt balance for the major was estimated to be about $21.5 billion at the end of March. Stock repurchases in the first three months of this year were estimated at $2.5 billion.