Expense

A federal appeals court in Washington, DC, last Tuesday upheld a FERC order that instructed natural gas pipelines to expense costs associated with their integrity management programs under the Pipeline Safety Improvement Act of 2002, rather than capitalize the costs.

A federal appeals court in Washington, DC, Tuesday upheld a FERC order that instructed natural gas pipelines to expense costs associated with their integrity management programs under the Pipeline Safety Improvement Act of 2002, rather than capitalize the costs.

FERC last Thursday issued a proposed rule aimed at reducing the time and expense involved in settling disputes that arise when parties move to change the terms of their jurisdictional wholesale natural gas and power sales contracts.

FERC on Thursday issued a proposed rule aimed at reducing the time and expense involved in settling disputes that arise when parties move to change the terms of their jurisdictional wholesale natural gas and power sales contracts.

With its interest expense growing by $100 million last quarter and topping the $1 billion level overall, Calpine Corp. received its latest bids Friday from a short-list of prospective buyers for its 1,200 MW Saltend power plant and a cogeneration facility in England, which may be just the beginning of a wave of asset sales, including some in North America, CFO Bob Kelly said.

The first battle over covering the expense of excess capacity generated by the onset of competition in the Canadian natural gas delivery grid has been won by TransCanada PipeLines Ltd., but the war is far from over. The National Energy Board (NEB) rejected a salvo of proposals to make TransCanada absorb half the costs of empty space in its system, setting the stage for toll increases on the remaining customers, with the amounts to be determined by another case now developing. However, the board also declared that its decision to uphold the status quo is temporary.

“Gas Producers cannot justify the expense of implementing[electronic data interchange] on all pipelines because ofinsufficient volumes on any particular pipeline,” the Natural GasSupply Association said last week in opposing FERC’s mandate foracross the board implementation of EDI by June 1, 1999.