Gale

Wisconsin Energy (WE) is eyeing natural gas distribution infrastructure upgrades as one of several capital investment opportunities in the next two to four years, CEO Gale Klappa told financial analysts Thursday in reporting 2Q2011 earnings of $98 million (41 cents/share), compared with $88 million (37 cent/share) in 2Q2010. Current efforts nationally to update gas pipeline rules and regulations are expected to create the need for more investment in WE’s gas pipeline system, and the company expects to also have the opportunity to buy some existing gas-fired cogeneration facilities that the state of Wisconsin owns and operates. “We still have to deal with aging gas and electric infrastructure,” said Klappa. “I am very confident we will be seeing additional capital spending in the 2013-14 time frame related to additional regulation on gas distribution and pipeline safety. Those issues are being debated right now by FERC [the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission] and the Congress.”

Wisconsin Energy is considering converting its coal-fired Valley Power Plant in Milwaukee to gas-fired generation, CEO Gale Klappa told shareholders during the company’s annual meeting Thursday in Mequon, WI.

While reporting improved quarter-over-quarter earnings and a growing rate base in its utilities, Wisconsin Energy CEO Gale Klappa noted the anticipated start-up date for a second coal-fired generation plant at its Oak Creek facility won’t be commercial until near the end of this year.

Royal Dutch Shell said Wednesday that it has hired former U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton as general counsel for Shell Exploration and Production’s unconventional resources division. Norton, who stepped down as Interior secretary in March, will provide and coordinate legal services for Shell starting in mid January, the company said.

Dirk Kempthorne, former governor of Idaho, was officially sworn in Wednesday as the secretary of the Department of Interior in a ceremony at the White House. He succeeds former Interior Secretary Gale Norton who departed in March.

Interior Deputy Secretary Lynn Scarlett became acting secretary of the department when Gale Norton, the first woman to head Interior, departed Friday following five years with the Bush administration.

Outgoing Interior Secretary Gale Norton was expected to sign a memorandum Wednesday that could open the door for states and local governments to assert rights-of-way (ROW) claims to thousands of miles of roads on public lands in the West, a move that environmentalists claim could lead to development of wildlife refuges, public parks and federal lands.

The announced resignation of Interior Secretary Gale Norton has given opponents of drilling off Florida’s coastline added impetus to stop the Bush administration’s proposal to open up more of the eastern Gulf of Mexico to oil and natural gas leasing, said offshore drilling foe Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) on Monday.

Citing high gas prices and declining production, industrial companies and municipal gas utilities urged Interior Secretary Gale Norton last week to include language in the agency’s next five-year oil and gas leasing plan (2007-2012) that will allow for lease sales in areas currently subject to drilling moratoria.