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Increasing financial risk in the energy trading business has prompted Natural Gas Exchange (NGX) to move to a fully collateralized gas commodity clearinghouse on July 1. The move is designed to ensure the integrity and security of exchange and clearing operations. NGX will require all parties to post collateral in the form of cash margin or a letter of credit.

Increased power purchase costs due to a six month unplanned outage at its Palisades nuclear plant, which is now back in service, as well as near-record warm weather in the fourth quarter and the impact of the economic slowdown on electric and gas sales, hammered CMS Energy financials. The Michigan-based utility and pipeline company reported a net loss of $1.03 per share or a loss of $138 million for the fourth quarter and a net loss of $545 million, or $4.17 loss per share, for the year. In comparison, the company reported a $1.44 loss per share, or a loss of $171 million, in the fourth quarter of 2000 and net income of $36 million, or $0.32 per share, in 2000.

The BP-operated Pascagoula (MS) Plant has informed Destin Pipeline that a full plant shutdown will be required Tuesday to replace a leaking upstream valve. The processing outage will begin at 9 a.m. CST and is expected to last no more than 12 hours. The Destin gas stream is rich enough that it must be processed to meet quality specs of downstream pipes, a spokesman said, so Destin operators will have to shut in during the plant work. Current throughput is down to about 500 MMcf/d because of some producer maintenance, so the plant outage will affect about 250 MMcf that day. An earlier Destin bulletin board posting had said the plant work was set for Monday, but it was decided early Thursday afternoon to wait until Tuesday in an effort to accommodate producer interests, the spokesman said.

Burlington Resources Inc. plans to lower its capital investments in 2002 to $1.3 billion, compared with combined full-year expenditures by the company and merger partner Canadian Hunter Exploration Ltd. of $1.6 billion this year. Excluding capital for acquisitions, next year, about 40% of Burlington’s exploration and production budget will be spent in Canada, with another 30% allocated to develop the San Juan Basin and Midcontinent areas of the United States. Another 30% will be spent on major development programs around the world.

Dominion has rescinded an OFO prompted by full storage pools and overdeliveries into its system (see Daily GPI, Dec. 7). However, a Nov. 8 “Equalization Advisory,” in which shippers were asked to be sure that receipt and delivery volumes conformed with each other, remains in effect, Dominion said.

Saying its storage pools are full and customers are overdelivering gas into its system, Dominion has implemented an OFO to protect its system integrity. The order affects all customers under Rate Schedules FT, FTNN, IT and MCS.

Even with the “full plate” of terrorist-related issues, appropriations bills and concerns about the economy before the Senate now, it should be able to act on the White House’s latest intended nominee for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Joseph T. Kelliher, before it adjourns for the year, a Senate committee press aide said. At the same time, the administration’s choice of Kelliher, a senior policy advisor at the Department of Energy (DOE), received high marks on Capitol Hill and from the energy industry last week.

Even with the “full plate” of terrorist-related issues, appropriations bills and concerns about the economy confronting the Senate now, it should be able to act on the White House’s latest intended nominee for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Joseph T. Kelliher, before it adjourns for the year, a Senate committee press aide said. At the same time, the administration’s choice of Kelliher, a senior policy advisor at the Department of Energy, for FERC received high marks on Capitol Hill and from the energy industry.

Florida Gas Transmission made it a full work week of OFOs by extending its Overage Alert Day notice that started last Monday through at least Friday. In Friday’s notice, the tolerance for negative daily imbalances was loosened once again from 10% to 15%.