Facts

Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. officials on Tuesday came out swinging against “facts and inferences made in wire and published reports,” which claim that several toxic chemicals recently had been found in water samples taken near the company’s natural gas drilling operations in the Dimock Township area in Susquehanna County, PA.

With the dust now settling and the facts coming into clearer focus following the Bank of Montreal’s (BMO) announcement late last month of significant losses on natural gas trades, the fourth largest Canadian bank warned investors Thursday that its initial report of losses from “out-of-the-money options” of between C$350 million and C$450 million (US$313.70 million to US$403.33 million) has been increased to C$680 million (US$623.80 million).

With the dust now settling and the facts coming into clearer focus following the Bank of Montreal’s (BMO) announcement late last month of significant losses on natural gas trades, the fourth largest Canadian bank warned investors Thursday that its initial report of losses from “out-of-the-money options” of between C$350 million and C$450 million (US$313.70 million to US$403.33 million) has been increased to C$680 million (US$623.80 million).

Transwestern Pipeline told FERC earlier this month that it overlooked facts and the chronology of events prior to the Enron Corp. bankruptcy in pressing Transwestern and Northern Natural to explain the use of $1 billion in loans to support their failing parent company, Enron. Transwestern secured $550 million from Citicorp North America Inc. and JP Morgan Chase Bank that it then gave to its parent company in the weeks prior to Enron’s Chapter 11 filing.