Dismiss

Amaranth LLC, also known as “the Fund,” Monday asked FERC to dismiss charges that it shares the responsibility for Amaranth Advisors’ alleged manipulation of the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) natural gas futures contract, which subsequently influenced the price of jurisdictional physical gas transactions in 2006.

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, Thursday rejected a request by Rosetta Resources Inc. to dismiss Calpine Corp.’s allegations of fraud by the oil and gas producer. Calpine made the charges as part of its ongoing Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding. A trial is now expected in December.

Rosetta Resources Inc. asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, Tuesday to dismiss unsettled allegations of fraudulent actions by the oil/gas producer made by Chapter 11-bound power plant operator Calpine Corp., which at one time owned Rosetta’s principal North American oil/gas reserves. Rosetta argued that the Calpine claims are barred as a matter of law by the expected full payment of Calpine’s creditors under the company’s proposed reorganization plan.

Former Enron Corp. CEO Jeffrey Skilling on Friday asked the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans to dismiss the 19 convictions that sent him to prison last year for 24 years and four months.

In a market that seems to be able to dismiss negative influences almost at will, cash prices shrugged off the previous day’s 70.6-cent screen drop and still-limited amounts of heating load to turn in a mixed performance Tuesday. Many points were little changed from flat, but gains ran as high as about 15 cents while losses topped out at nearly 20 cents.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas on Thursday filed a motion to dismiss charges against a former Duke Energy North America LLC (DENA) trading executive whose case ended in a mistrial in December (see Daily GPI, Dec. 7, 2005).

Duke Energy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last week filed a joint motion calling on U.S. Middle District Court of North Carolina trial Judge Frank Bullock to rule in favor of Duke Energy in the government’s Clean Air Act “New Source Review” (NSR) enforcement litigation brought against the company.

A FERC administrative law judge (ALJ) urged the full Commission last Thursday to dismiss a series of complaints brought by power companies in Nevada, California and Washington seeking to reform above-market electric contracts that they entered into with generators during the height of the western energy crisis in 2000 and 2001.

Kinder Morgan Inc. said it has filed a “motion to dismiss” inColorado Federal District Court and will defend itself against acomplaint filed Dec. 20 by the Justice Department on behalf of theEnvironmental Protection Agency. The complaint alleges KMIsubsidiary Natural Gas Pipeline Company of America (NGPL) failed toobtain all necessary air quality permits when constructing theAkron Compressor Station in Weld County, CO, more than 20 yearsago. It requests penalties up to the statutory maximums of $25,000per day of violation prior to January 30, 1997 and $27,500 for eachday of violation after January 31, 1997.