Drive

The policy portion of the broad energy bill may have seen the last of the Senate floor this year, as senators on Thursday voted not to invoke cloture on an amendment that sought to piggyback energy policy initiatives to unrelated legislation cutting Internet access taxes.

Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers last week announced the distribution of more than $8 million in restitution to Oregon utility companies — the bulk going to Portland General Electric (PGE) — and industrial customers for losses during the electricity price spikes of 2000-2001.

Nevada Power Co. last Wednesday filed a federal lawsuit against Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA), several officials with the Colorado River Commission (CRC) and a former Enron Corp. trader in which Nevada Power alleges that the defendants manipulated western power markets in 2000-2001 at the expense of the Nevada-based electric utility.

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports will drive U.S. gas prices lower, but expensive domestic supplies still will keep the price floor higher than historical levels, Malcolm Brinded, managing director of Royal Dutch-Shell, said Wednesday at a two-day LNG Ministerial Summit in Washington, DC.

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.

After experiencing muted price moves for more than a week, the natural gas futures market tumbled to new three-month lows Thursday as traders digested the latest in a recent string of bearish storage reports. The Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) weekly storage report featured a larger-than-expected 37 Bcf storage injection.

By a four-vote margin last Wednesday, the Senate fought off a mostly Republican drive to clear the path for future oil and natural gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). It marked the second time in less than a year that the Senate has voted down ANWR energy development, but the margin of victory has slimmed considerably.

By a four-vote margin Wednesday, the Senate fought off a mostly Republican drive to clear the path for future oil and natural gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). It marked the second time in less than a year that the Senate has voted down ANWR energy development, but the margin of victory has narrowed considerably.

Not enough hedging and abnormal weather on both coasts played a role in driving Bellevue, WA-based Puget Sound Energy (PSE) to announce Wednesday it was filing with state regulators for about a 17%, or almost $10 monthly, retail natural gas rate increase. Only 25% of the Puget’s supplies were locked in at fixed prices last year, a spokesperson said Thursday in an interview with NGI.