Crunch

Even in the midst of a credit/credibility crunch that has shrunk its stock price and slowed its aggressive development program, San Jose, CA-based Calpine Corp. is looking to expand its natural gas operations, including a lusting eye toward the coal-bed methane industry in the heartland of the U.S. During an interview with NGI Tuesday, Calpine’s chief gas executive said he expects prices to trend upward as new supplies get tighter.

Rocked by investor concerns that have led to a liquidity crunch — and a drop in share value of almost 88% in a year — AES Corp. has approved a plan to massively restructure its operations, including a 41% cut in capital expenditures, a move to distance its exposure in Latin America, and withdrawing from electricity trading. AES’s share price plunged from $10/share on Feb. 13 to just above $4 on Friday in reaction to its Venezuela exposure, which forced CEO Dennis W. Bakke to sell almost seven million of his 32 million shares of stock on a margin call to prop up a $36 million personal loan. Two other officers also sold 400,000 shares because of margin calls.

As an outgrowth of the winter-spring energy price and supply crunch that spawned a statewide emergency and two special sessions of the state legislature, California wound up this week with two new bills designed to promote cheaper, more reliable natural gas supplies. Gov. Gray Davis signed the bills (AB 1233 and AB 21XX) over the weekend.

With the stimulus of the state’s electricity and natural gas crunch lingering, the pace of new natural gas well drilling in the northern half of California has nearly doubled over last year, according to state officials. Notices to drill new gas wells are coming in at a pace not seen since the mid-1980s, and the total for any single year in the 1990s will soon be surpassed.

This week is crunch time for the California legislature and the fate of Southern California Edison Co. as it sits on the edge of being dragged into bankruptcy. Facing a summer recess beginning this Friday, state lawmakers were exploring alternatives to the April 9 deal the governor and Edison struck that involves the sale of the utility’s transmission assets to the state.

This week is crunch time for the California legislature and the fate of Southern California Edison Co. as it sits on the edge of being dragged into bankruptcy. Facing a summer recess starting this Friday, state lawmakers were exploring alternatives to the April 9 deal between the governor and Edison that calls for the sale of the utility’s transmission assets to the state.

It’s crunch time on the energy policy front, and the big guns are in play, preparing the ground for the administration’s much-heralded comprehensive energy strategy. Vice President Dick Cheney has been putting in a series of media appearances lately, supporting energy development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), and a task force of energy experts has published a report calling on the nation to make some hard choices or face “more Californias in America’s future.”

It’s crunch time on the energy policy front, and the big guns are in play, preparing the ground for the administration’s much-heralded comprehensive energy strategy. Vice President Dick Cheney has been putting in a series of media appearances lately, supporting energy development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), and today a task force of energy experts is unveiling a report calling on the nation to make some hard choices or face “more Californias in America’s future.”

While acknowledging behind the scenes that immediate help from Washington was unlikely, the California Power Exchange (Cal-PX) last week prepared to put in a bid for a temporary $350 a MWh price cap as the state suffered through another week of short power and high prices.