Formal

El Paso Corp. said Wednesday it has filed a formal application with FERC seeking authority to build the U.S. leg of its proposed Bahamas-to-Florida Seafarer natural gas pipeline.

El Paso Corp. said Wednesday it has filed a formal application with FERC seeking authority to build the U.S. leg of its proposed Bahamas-to-Florida Seafarer natural gas pipeline.

After several years of added time and legal costs, Avista Corp. received a formal decision Wednesday from FERC that the company’s utility and trading units had not manipulated wholesale energy markets during the western crisis of 2000-2001. The regulators approved their trial staff’s conclusion of no wrongdoing.

Within hours of a formal announcement last Friday by BHP Billiton about a proposed offshore liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal 21 miles off the Southern California coast, residents and community activists in the nearest onshore population center at Oxnard, CA, were already protesting the proposal. Local environmentalists and elected officials defeated another LNG proposal from Occidental Petroleum Co. last year.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) last Monday placed a formal hold on the nomination of Joseph T. Kelliher to fill one of two vacant seats at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, according to the senator’s office.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) Monday placed a formal hold on the nomination of Joseph T. Kelliher to fill one of two vacant seats at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, according to the senator’s office.

Although it did not provide formal earnings guidance for next year, TXU Corp. said it is “more comfortable” with full-year 2003 earnings estimates of about $2/share because of a planned stock sale and the completion of a recent sale of exchangeable subordinated notes. The company earned $3.78/share in 2001.

San Francisco-based Pacific Gas and Electric Co. last week filed formal objections to the state regulators’ competing reorganization plan in the utility’s ongoing Chapter 11 bankruptcy case in a federal district court. The utility outlined its major objections with an alternative reorganization plan proposed in the court proceedings by the California Public Utilities Commission.

Although there have been few if any formal announcements about increases in exploration and capital spending, there has been a huge increase in the rig count since it bottomed out a little more than a month ago, indicating producers probably aren’t waiting around to take advantage of a favorable 12-month gas futures strip, Raymond James & Associates said in an equity research note.