Flare

The recent surge in natural gas prices may have provoked some optimism in the energy sector, but it’s not enough to encourage more drilling, according to Barclays Capital, which expects the rig count to not surpass 450 this year.

As tempers continued to flare between utilities, power marketers and qualifying facility generators in California, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued a series of orders in an attempt to douse some of the long-simmering disputes in the state’s crippled wholesale power markets. California power marketers and suppliers prevailed on the key creditworthy and so-called “chargeback” issues, while the California Power Exchange (Cal-PX), the California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO) and the state’s two troubled investor-owned utilities suffered significant blows.

Georgia regulators have become bitter following the thirdsettlement of a slamming case involving a retail gas marketer andthe second retail marketer bankruptcy. Simmering tempers havereached the boiling point with some public service commissionersconcluding the deregulation process has been a total failure.Others remain hopeful that the many lessons learned in the processwill help the PSC proceed with electric deregulation when itbecomes the next order of business.