Doing

The cash market once again displayed amazing resilience in achieving increases — most of them fairly substantial — at all points Friday. In doing so, it swam against the negative tide of milder weather returning to key northern market areas, prior-day screen weakness, a highly bearish storage situation and the usual decline of industrial load over a weekend.

Necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention, prompting many oil and natural gas companies, including El Paso Corp., to come up with new ways of doing business in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

U.S. Energy Corp. (USEG) and its majority-owned subsidiary, Crested Corp. (CBAG), doing business as USECC, said Thursday that they have closed the agreement to sell their natural gas subsidiary, Rocky Mountain Gas Inc., (RMG) to Enterra Energy Trust for $18.8 million in cash and stock.

KeySpan Corp. said Tuesday that subsidiary Boston Gas Co., doing business as KeySpan Energy Delivery New England, has received a $26 million natural gas base rate increase from Massachusetts’ Department of Telecommunications and Energy (DTE). The new rates went into effect Nov. 3.

Doing about what its senior executives said they expected, San Francisco-based PG&E Corp. Tuesday reported consolidated earnings that were in line with the second quarter last year, although consolidated utility results were down sharply. Also as expected, PG&E’s merchant energy unit, PG&E National Energy Group (NEG), which last month filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, reported a loss for the quarter, albeit a smaller one than its loss in the second quarter of 2002.

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan will be waving his red flag on natural gas supply issues again on July 10 in front of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Three weeks ago Greenspan told a House panel that if the United States wants to maintain its current standard of living, it will have to become a bigger player in the global gas market by importing more liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan will be waving his red flag on natural gas supply issues again on July 10 in front of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Three weeks ago Greenspan told a House panel that if the United States wants to maintain its current standard of living, it will have to become a bigger player in the global gas market by importing more liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Wind energy is doing its part to help lower gas prices by reducing gas demand from gas-fired power generation, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). However, one critic says whatever money is saved in lower gas prices, if any, is clearly being more than offset by the substantial subsidies wind power developers receive from taxpayers.

Florida Gas Transmission ended Thursday an Overage Alert Day notice that had begun Tuesday.