Goes

Moody’s Investor Services downgraded the credit rating of the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA). BPA goes to an “Aa1” rating from “Aaa,” impacting $6.3 billion in outstanding debt. The outlook was set at “stable.” Moody’s said the downgrade reflects BPA’s increased “hydrology and market price risk,” which has eroded its credit quality during the last several years. Financial reserves available to handle increased risk have dropped by 36% during the two-year period ending with fiscal year 2010, Moody’s said. The ratings agency said it expects the challenges for BPA to continue in the form of “low natural gas prices, sustained lower demand and increasing amounts of wind generation during BPA’s peak surplus energy sales season.”

Laser Northeast Gathering Co. LLC’s wait to learn whether it can construct a gas gathering pipeline with “public utility” status in the heart of Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale country was extended Thursday when the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission (PUC) voted to remand the case to an administrative law judge (ALJ).

Even with an energy industry “sea change” to renewables, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) remains reliant on natural gas and the industry’s current shale boom, General Manager Ron Nichols told NGI’s Shale Daily on Thursday.

Sometimes what goes down keeps going down. That would appear to be true of natural gas prices. Wednesday analysts at Goldman Sachs cut their 2011 New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) gas price forecast to $4/MMBtu from $5.25/MMBtu. And just a day earlier Barclays Capital analysts were asking “Who stepped on my forward curve?”

Sometimes what goes down keeps going down. That would appear to be true of natural gas prices.

It’s an old saying: What goes up must come down. That was true in spades in the cash gas market Thursday as sharply rising prices over the previous two days suddenly reversed into major plunges at virtually all points. The below-normal temperatures expected by the weekend in most of North America, which had apparently been instrumental in driving the market higher during the first half of the week, lost their bullish influence after a four-day string of futures increases ended Wednesday with a dive of 16.4 cents.

Looking to gain a more thorough picture of what goes on in the electronically traded futures markets, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has proposed a rule that would allow the government organization to collect on a weekly basis certain ownership, control and other information for all trading accounts active on U.S. futures exchanges and other reporting entities.

Looking to gain a more thorough picture of what goes on in the electronically traded futures markets, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has proposed a rule that would allow the government organization to collect on a weekly basis certain ownership, control and other information for all trading accounts active on U.S. futures exchanges and other reporting entities.

Senate Democrats’ legislation overhauling the financial regulatory system is “good” as far as it goes (see Daily GPI, April 30), but it needs “stronger” language, including a provision to break up the big banks, said an official with National People’s Action (NPA).