Elevate

The chief executives of Canada’s five biggest pipeline companies last week vowed to elevate safety to a top priority.

The chief executives of Canada’s five biggest pipeline companies lined up Wednesday to vow to elevate safety to a top priority.

Producers on Tennessee Gas Pipeline have filed protests to a tariff proposal that would elevate the scheduling priority for local distribution companies (LDCs) on the pipeline’s system, saying that it would discriminate against both producers and marketers.

San Diego-based Sempra Energy said Wednesday it will elevate its current CFO Mark Snell to president, effective Oct. 1, and consolidate its natural gas infrastructure businesses into U.S. and international units. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) will no longer be a separate operating unit, a footnote to the fact that it is a waning part of the domestic gas marketplace.

A financial services overhaul said to be under consideration by the Obama administration would elevate the Federal Reserve Board (Fed) to systemic risk regulator and create a new government agency to supervise banks, insurers and financial services firms. The proposed structure would leave most of the powers of current agencies intact, but calls to consolidate some of the powers of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) may lead to a turf battle in Congress.

A financial services overhaul said to be under consideration by the Obama administration would elevate the Federal Reserve to systemic risk regulator and create a new government agency to supervise banks, insurers and financial services firms. The proposed structure would leave most of the powers of current agencies intact, but there are advocates for consolidating some of the powers of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Buoyed by follow-through buying on the heels of Wednesday’s late price surge and in reaction to weather forecasts (both for hot temps next week as well as the formation of Tropical Depression 2), natural gas futures shuffled higher for the third session in a row Thursday as short-covering promoted prices to new week-and-a-half highs. At the closing bell, the August contract was knocking on the door of some important technical levels, up 8.6 cents at $3.428.