Consecutive

Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum Corp. (Oxy) set a record U.S. production at 478,000 boe/d in 1Q2013, its 10th consecutive record quarter, the management team said last week.

Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum Corp. (Oxy) set a record U.S. production at 478,000 boe/d in 1Q2013, its 10th consecutive record quarter, Oxy officials reported Thursday during a conference call with analysts. Income from continuing operations during the quarter was down slightly from the same period last year ($1.4 billion, or $1.69/diluted share, vs. $1.6 billion, or $1.92/diluted share, in 1Q2012), they said.

The fourth quarter was Carrizo Oil & Gas Inc.’s ninth consecutive quarter of revenue growth and one during which it charted record oil production and oil revenue, affirming the wisdom of management’s decision to transform Carrizo into an oil company, CEO Chip Johnson said.

Apache Corp. topped its overall production record for the fourth consecutive year, the company’s management team said Thursday. Average daily production in 2012 increased to 779,000 boe/d, up 5.4% year/year. Despite the impact of substantially lower Canadian natural gas prices, revenues for the year hit a record $16.9 billion.

California air quality officials reported that for the fourth consecutive year carbon emissions from power plants in the state have declined dramatically. A full-year figure for 2012 is still being calculated, according to the California Air Resources Board (CARB), which is the lead agency implementing the state’s precedent-setting 2006 climate change law (AB 32). As measured by CARB, power plant carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions in 2011 totaled 34.9 million metric tons of CO2e (MTCO2e), compared to 52.3 million MTCO2e four years earlier. Subsequently, the totals dropped to 49.3 million MTCO2e in 2009 and down further to 44.6 million MTCO2e in 2010. Power plants are the biggest stationary source of MTCO2e emissions, followed by refineries and hydrogen plants, whose total emissions are also down compared to 2008 but have steadily risen during the last three recorded years (2009-2011).

The first of a two-part rate decrease kicked in Monday in Idaho for Intermountain Gas Co., its sixth consecutive natural gas utility retail rate decrease, according to the Idaho Public Utilities Commission (PUC). The second part of the rate reduction comes in December in the form of a one-time bill credit, the PUC said. Combined, the adjustments result in a decrease of 7.1% for the average Intermountain residential customer. The reductions represent nearly $18 million in lower costs for the Boise, ID-based gas utility: $6 million in wholesale gas cost reductions and $11.9 million in the one-time credit from differences in the annual purchased cost projections and the weighted average cost of gas (WACOG). With the latest adjustments, the WACOG drops from 41.8 cents/therm to 33.5 cents/therm, the PUC said, the lowest it has been in 10 years.

Inflated by production from the nation’s burgeoning shale plays, total gross withdrawals of domestic natural gas jumped to 28.58 Tcf in 2011, a 6.5% increase from 26.84 Tcf in 2010, and are on pace to easily surpass those numbers again this year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Monthly Energy Review for September.

Domestic natural gas production will be at an all-time high this year and is expected to reset that record for a third consecutive year in 2013, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its Short Term Energy Outlook for September.

Domestic natural gas production will be at an all-time high this year and is expected to reset that record for a third consecutive year in 2013, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its Short Term Energy Outlook for September.