Decided

Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez has decided he needs more information to decide AES Sparrows Point’s consistency appeal under the Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA), and consequently has stayed the closure of the decision record until April 14.

Dallas-based independent oil and gas producer Basa Resources has decided to renew its electricity contract with Suez Energy Resources NA, the U.S. retail energy business of Suez Energy North America, through 2014. Suez Energy Resources will provide electricity service to Basa Resources electric accounts serving oil and gas wells in the Oncor territory in West Texas with a peak demand of more than 25 MW. Terms of the agreement were not released. Basa’s original contract with Suez Energy Resources is due to expire in mid-2009. Suez Energy Resources serves commercial and industrial customers with peak demands ranging from 50 KW to more than 200 MW in nine states and the District of Columbia.

After failing to break through psychological support at $7 over the previous three sessions, natural gas futures on Thursday decided to check out the upside for a change as the January contract reached a high of $7.425 before closing out the day at $7.330, up 14.5 cents from Wednesday’s finish.

BP plc decided last week to ditch its dense business organization to zero in on its main businesses: the upstream and the downstream.

After battling higher on Monday and then forcing the market lower on Tuesday, the July natural gas futures contract and the people who trade it decided to make Wednesday a draw. The contract traded between $8 and $8.155 before settling the day smack dab in the middle at $8.080, up 1.6 cents from Tuesday.

April natural gas futures rallied 19.1 cents Wednesday to finish at $7.083 as some end-users decided the $6.900 level was a prime place to cash in their chips and buy gas. While the prompt month settled higher for the first time in six regular sessions and above $7 for the first time in three, some market experts weren’t ready to bring their bull costumes out of the closet just yet, even with the expectations that a significant storage withdrawal would be revealed Thursday.

Erasing almost all of Tuesday’s gains, March natural gas futures dropped 12.6 cents to close at $7.241 in a quiet regular session Wednesday as traders decided to take it easy ahead of Thursday’s potentially record-breaking natural gas storage report for the week ended Feb. 9.

With a legal opinion supporting the move, the Port of Long Beach Harbor Commission last week decided to terminate an ongoing environmental assessment and reject a four-year-old proposal by Sound Energy Solutions (SES) to build a 1 Bcf/d receiving terminal for liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the harbor.

With a legal opinion supporting the move, the Port of Long Beach Harbor Commission Monday decided to terminate an ongoing environmental assessment and reject a four-year-old proposal by Sound Energy Solutions (SES) to build a 1 Bcf/d receiving terminal for liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the harbor.