Dependent

Producers in Western Canada, who were already heavily dependent on natural gas, increased their weighting from oil to gas even more during 1Q2009, according to a survey conducted by Canadian research firm Bryan Mills Iradesso.

Sempra Energy CEO Don Felsinger said Tuesday California offers several regulatory advantages to utilities, such as Sempra’s two in Southern California — rates not dependent on ever-increasing sales volumes, and return on equity (ROE) that is relatively generous.

The Midwest — a region that was said to be “very dependent” on outside sources for natural gas — got a clean bill of health last Wednesday from FERC staff, who concluded in a report that “adequate pipeline and storage capacity” exists to meet the gas needs of the regional market.

The Midwest — a region that was said to be “very dependent” on outside sources for natural gas — got a clean bill of health Wednesday from FERC staff, who concluded in a report that “adequate pipeline and storage capacity” existed to meet the gas needs of the regional market.

Columbia Gas Transmission is conducting an open season to test the level of interest in moving Midcontinent gas collected by other pipelines into its Ohio territory to serve the growing power generation load.

With the ultimate energy solution dependent on a historic public bond sale targeted for August, the state of California last week got a preview of how Wall Street might view state offerings with the completion of a $1 billion general obligation bond sale. An official close to the State Treasurer Phil Angelides said the state’s banker was generally pleased with the results and optimistic for the $12.4 billion electricity bond sale in August.

The future of merchant power will be inhibited unless there arenew approaches and new perceptions about the technical, economicand political approaches applied, according to a panel of expertsat GasMart/Power 2000 Tuesday in Denver. Regardless of what preciseindustry changes are made, not all of the proposed new power plantswill get built, and distributed generation ultimately will have toplay a role to satisfy the expected growing demand that equates toabout 5 Tcf of added gas over the next 10 years, according topanelists discussing “The Runaway World of Merchant Power.”

FERC has decided to give Atlanta Gas Light (AGL) a short-termextension of waivers to Commission regulations to preserve the”status quo” of natural gas unbundling in the state while itexplores other non-waiver options for utilities.