Entry

Canada’s entry in the arctic natural gas pipeline race is still not out of the woods. Aboriginal consent, a key item for resource developers in the Northwest Territories, continues to elude the C$7 billion (US$5.6 billion) Mackenzie Gas Project.

Regulatory hearings on Canada’s entry in the arctic pipeline race have been postponed until 2006, prompting the Northwest Territories government to warn that the C$7-billion (US$5.6-billion) Mackenzie Gas Project could be shelved. The lag gives Alaska a chance to take over the North American lead in northern supply development, territorial energy minister Brendan Bell said.

BP plc apparently is negotiating a swap with Russia’s Gazprom so that BP can gain natural gas pipeline access in Europe and Gazprom can gain access to the growing U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) market. If the transaction is completed, it would be the second for Gazprom, which signed a memorandum of understanding with ChevronTexaco last month to undertake a joint U.S. oil and gas project (see NGI, Sept. 27).

BP plc apparently is negotiating a swap with Russia’s Gazprom so that BP can gain natural gas pipeline access in Europe and Gazprom can gain access to the growing U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) market. If the transaction is completed, it would be the second in as many weeks for Gazprom, which signed a memorandum of understanding with ChevronTexaco to undertake a joint U.S. oil and gas project (see Daily GPI, Sept. 23).

A 2003 bet of C$80-100 million (US$60-75 million) that TransCanada PipeLines’ entry will win the northern pipeline race is starting to make the nation’s top natural gas transporter nervous.

A 2003 bet of C$80 million to $100 million (US$60 million to $75 million) that TransCanada PipeLines’ entry will win the northern pipeline race is starting to make the nation’s top natural gas transporter nervous.

A recent triennial market power update filed by several Exelon Corp. affiliates shows that the companies fail FERC’s supply margin assessment (SMA) “by a significant margin,” Midwest Generation LLC recently said. The SMA screen is used to determine whether a wholesale power seller has potential generation market power.

If you look up the dictionary definition of “mixed,” by now the entry might be reading, “See Thursday’s cash gas market.” The number of rising points slightly outweighed the falling ones, but many of the gains were small (in single digits) and most of the losses were large at 30-55 cents or so.

Aquila Inc. CEO Robert K. Green, who led the company’s entry into the energy merchant business, has resigned from all of his executive positions as well as the board of directors. Chairman Richard C. Green Jr., Aquila’s founder, chairman and Robert Green’s brother, has assumed the CEO duties. Since June, Aquila has reduced its workforce at its headquarters in Kansas City, as well as in Houston and London, and will return to its historic roots as an energy distribution network and generation business (see Daily GPI, Aug. 7).