Footnote

As a glaring footnote to natural gas price volatility sparked immediately after the two big Gulf of Mexico hurricanes late last summer, Portland, OR-based Northwest Natural Gas Co. and some of its largest customers are locked in a dispute over retail natural gas deals the utility offered them.

Although it is an obscure footnote in the state’s draft update to an Integrated Energy Policy Report, Sempra Energy’s Southern California Gas Co. utility is proposing to look for new indigenous natural gas supplies in and around its extensive underground storage fields in otherwise depleted oil/gas areas in Southern California. A request is before the California Public Utilities Commission to set up a rate procedure to reward utility retail customers if the utility finds any commercial-sized amount of gas.

Although it is an obscure footnote in the state’s draft update to an Integrated Energy Policy Report, Sempra Energy’s Southern California Gas Co. utility is proposing to look for new indigenous natural gas supplies in and around its extensive underground storage fields in otherwise depleted oil/gas areas in Southern California. A request is before the California Public Utilities Commission to set up a rate procedure to reward utility retail customers if the utility finds any commercial-sized amount of gas.

Although it is an obscure footnote in the state’s draft update to an Integrated Energy Policy Report, Sempra Energy’s Southern California Gas Co. utility is proposing to look for new indigenous natural gas supplies in and around its extensive underground storage fields in otherwise depleted oil/gas areas in Southern California. A request is before the California Public Utilities Commission to set up a rate procedure to reward utility retail customers if the utility finds any commercial-sized amount of gas.

As a footnote to the wide-ranging issues emerging fromCalifornia’s electricity wars this summer, the City of Los AngelesDepartment of Water and Power (LADWP) Tuesday paid a record $14million penalty to regional air quality regulators as a result ofrunning its older, more polluting LA Basin generating plantsfull-out this summer. The heavy penalty points up an increasinglytenuous situation for merchant generators who are running out ofways to avoid exceeding their plants’ air emission limits.