Crisis

Voluntary natural gas price surveys have come a long way from the depths of the market crisis in 2002 as both the volume of trading and the reporting of trades has greatly increased in 2003, Natural Gas Intelligence (NGI) said Wednesday in a report to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Voluntary natural gas price surveys have come a long way from the depths of the market crisis in 2002 as both the volume of trading and the reporting of trades has greatly increased in 2003, Natural Gas Intelligence (NGI) said Wednesday in a report to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

With a growing interest in changing the state’s energy landscape in the post-2000/2001 crisis, California lawmakers this week will further examine two separate and major proposals for establishing a new foundation for industry matters. Sacramento observers are unsure of the ultimate fate of the two proposals — one in the state Senate and the other in the lower house Assembly.

Despite a “big lie” that persists among state and national public policymakers, the natural gas market is “extremely healthy” today, and the fact that its margins may be modest could be a good thing in the long run, Robert Dickerman, president of Sempra Energy Solutions, said on Tuesday at the annual GasMart/Power conference in New Orleans.

Despite a “big lie” that persists among state and national public policymakers, the natural gas market is “extremely healthy” today, and the fact that its margins may be modest could be a good thing in the long run, Robert Dickerman, president of Sempra Energy Solutions, said on Tuesday at the annual GasMart/Power conference in New Orleans.

Over the lone objections of the former head state regulator, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. Thursday received a $7.6 million conditioned reward from state regulators for its natural gas buying in 2001-02, including the period of extreme wholesale energy price spikes. The reward for keeping costs below a formula tied to gas price indices was less than half of the almost $17 million requested by the utility and was subject to future forfeiture pending the outcome of pending California wholesale border price investigations.

The merchant energy trading segment is suffering a “crisis of confidence,” which is creating a “down cycle,” not a “death spiral,” Mirant’s Chief Risk Officer Michael Smith said last week.

A California state court judge in San Diego Wednesday added to the state energy crisis litigation glut by agreeing that a class action lawsuit against El Paso Corp. and Sempra Energy’s two natural gas utilities can move forward, setting a preliminary trial date of Sept. 4, 2003. At issue are allegations the nation’s largest interstate gas pipeline company and the two Southern California utilities conspired to keep out competing pipelines that would have prevented the severe wholesale gas price spikes at the California-Arizona border in the 2000-2001 time frame.

In a much-anticipated initial decision Monday, Chief Administrative Law Judge Curtis Wagner found that El Paso Natural Gas withheld “extremely large amounts of capacity” from shippers on its system to drive up prices for natural gas delivered to the southern California border during the critical November 2000-March 2001 period. He called this “a clear exercise of market power.”