Everything

Range Resources unit Range Production Co. may depose an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official on Tuesday (Jan. 25), a federal judge in Austin, TX, ruled last week. The agency has accused the company of contaminating water wells with its Barnett Shale drilling activities, a claim Range disputes.

Everything is relative as evidenced by Sempra Energy senior management feeling good about a $740 million settlement of more than $1.36 billion in lawsuits and writing down another $64 million against second quarter earnings to account for part of an underground natural gas storage project that proved uneconomic.

Everything is relative as evidenced by Sempra Energy senior management feeling good about a $740 million settlement of more than $1.36 billion in lawsuits and writing down another $64 million against second quarter earnings to account for part of an underground natural gas storage project that proved uneconomic. All in all, the San Diego-based energy holding company last Friday posted solid, if reduced, results quarter-over-quarter (see Daily GPI, Aug. 3).

Speculation was put to rest Thursday that El Paso Corp.’s Ruby Pipeline project might not be a go. Company officials said everything is on track for the 680-mile pipeline, which would carry natural gas supplies from the Rockies to the West Coast.

Climate change, also known as global warming, poses significant challenges for the energy industry, according to a U.S. Department of Energy report out Thursday. Everything from oil and gas exploration to all varieties of power generation to energy trading and risk management could see a shakeup as temperatures rise around the globe.

Generation reserve margins have shrunk across the country, and the United States has built too much gas-fired power gen and too little of everything else, making for a capacity portfolio that is underpowered and out of whack — not to mention too dependent upon natural gas, which increasingly will come from abroad.

Generation reserve margins have shrunk across the country, and the United States has built too much gas-fired power gen and too little of everything else, making for a capacity portfolio that is underpowered and out of whack — not to mention too dependent upon natural gas, which increasingly will come from abroad.

With local opposition cropping up against everything from offshore wind turbines to transmission lines, New England’s “severe case of NIMBYism” is a key challenge for the region, the head of ISO New England (ISO-NE) noted last week.

With natural gas prices expected to remain volatile and high, the rush to coal-fired electric generation is back. Everything from vertically integrated utilities to merchant operators are proposing new plants, as well as hyping the prospects for “clean coal” facilities, but some old-fashioned caution is recommended in a report released Tuesday by Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services (S&P), examining whether high yield or high grade financing will build these plants.