Giant

It’s going on seven years since the bankruptcy of a certain Houston-based energy trading giant, and natural gas marketers have remained true to their renewed faith in physical assets: pipelines and storage. But that’s not to say gas marketing is a sleepy business of merely pushing molecules through pipes and counting dollars.

It’s going on seven years since the bankruptcy of a certain Houston-based energy trading giant, and natural gas marketers have remained true to their renewed faith in physical assets: pipelines and storage. But that’s not to say gas marketing is a sleepy business of merely pushing molecules through pipes and counting dollars.

With a giant public-sector bond-backing firm, MBIA Insurance Corp., dodging a potential credit downgrade tied to the subprime mortgage meltdown, two California public power financing arms could breathe a little easier concerning $1.4 billion of bonds for pre-pay long-term natural gas purchases they helped finance last year. However, a third a third muni gas pre-pay deal by the City of Long Beach Bond Finance Authority was hit with a downgrade Wednesday.

With political tensions and diminishing onshore reserves around the world, the deepwater is “virtually the only place” where giant oil and natural gas fields will be found in the future, the managing director of UK-based Douglas-Westwood told a Houston audience Thursday.

With political tensions and diminishing onshore reserves around the world, the deepwater is “virtually the only place” where giant oil and natural gas fields will be found in the future, the managing director of UK-based Douglas-Westwood told a Houston audience Thursday.

It’s not easy being ExxonMobil Corp. The world’s largest publicly traded company’s share price dropped Thursday after the energy giant posted a higher-than-expected 10% drop in quarterly net income — even as it set a revenue record.

Energy giant BP plc cleared up a backlog of violations last week as it reached agreements with a number of federal agencies to pay $380 million in penalties, restitution and other payments for allegedly manipulating the propane market, violating natural gas pipeline policies, a fatal explosion at its Texas City refinery in 2005 and crude oil pipeline leaks in Alaska in 2006.

Following an announcement earlier this month that it is embarking on a companywide restructuring, industry giant BP plc last week released disappointing third quarter results — a 29% decline in net income — that were largely influenced by refinery problems, lower refining margins and weak marketing and trading results.

Following an announcement earlier this month that it is embarking on a companywide restructuring, industry giant BP plc Tuesday released disappointing third quarter results — a 29% decline in net income — that were largely influenced by refinery problems, lower refining margins and weak marketing and trading results.