Focuses

A test case has told the natural gas industry it can venture offshore of Canada’s west coast — if it is willing to wade through seas of environmental protest and local political resistance in British Columbia.

A test case has told the natural gas industry it can venture offshore of Canada’s west coast – if it is willing to wade through seas of environmental protest and local political resistance in British Columbia.

A combination of above-market priced, long-term contracts and demand-side programs is the best formula for avoiding a return of high prices and power blackouts, the California Consumer Power and Conservation Financing Authority concluded at a recent board meeting in Sacramento. It is pointing the state toward achieving reserve levels of more than 20%, with ideally half coming from the demandside.

Calgary-based EnCana, the largest North American-based independent oil and gas company, has no plans to gather dust, setting a broad target to grow its natural gas production and storage capacity on the continent, expand its Gulf of Mexico holdings and search for new platforms for exploration expansion — and that’s not all.

Calgary-based EnCana, the largest North American-based independent oil and gas company, has no plans to gather dust, setting a broad target to grow its natural gas production and storage capacity on the continent, expand its Gulf of Mexico holdings and search for new platforms for exploration expansion — and that’s not all.

Reno-based Sierra Pacific Resources last week wrestled with uneasy shareholders who eager to find out what the future holds for Las Vegas-based Nevada Power Co. By Thursday, the holding company for Nevada’s two major private-sector electric utilities named a new president for the utility and vowed to fight pending public sector takeover attempts.

A year past the initial stigma of its utility affiliate’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy, PG&E National Energy Group (NEG) is focused on streamlining its portfolio of new energy projects and hanging on to its investment-grade credit ratings, a senior PG&E executive said last week in a conference call with the financial community. On an operating basis both the NEG nonutility businesses and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. utility showed lower earnings than the same period in 2001.

Attempting to distance itself from other California utility companies, executives with San Diego-based Sempra Energy, which owns the state’s third largest utility, instead zeroed in Thursday on its 8-10% expected growth, and explained to analysts how they hope to derive more than half of the company’s total income from business units outside the state — with a special focus on Northern Mexico — by 2004. Included in its plans for Mexico is a $500 million LNG terminal it expects to build with CMS Energy in Baja California.

Duke Energy, which is targeting its strategy in U.S. growthmarkets, has zeroed in on the right side of the U.S. map, expectingpower generation there to surpass the rest of the country. Thenatural gas giant expects Florida to grow at a rate of 4.5%annually, the Southeast and Texas to grow at 3%; and the East Coastand Upper Midwest to reach 2.5%.