Inflated

Inflated by production from the nation’s burgeoning shale plays, total gross withdrawals of domestic natural gas jumped to 28.58 Tcf in 2011, a 6.5% increase from 26.84 Tcf in 2010, and are on pace to easily surpass those numbers again this year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Monthly Energy Review for September.

Despite last Thursday’s announced delay in U.S. State Department processing and earlier criticisms of inflated economic benefits from the project (see Shale Daily, Nov. 9), the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Alberta, Canada to the U.S. Gulf of Mexico ultimately should be approved, according to project sponsor TransCanada.

The biggest problem facing natural gas pipelines in the West is the “hugely inflated cash demands” by Native Americans for renewal of rights-of-way (ROW) contracts for the use of their tribal lands, a top El Paso Corp. official told FERC Wednesday.

A one-time income tax recovery, which inflated financial results in last year’s second quarter, sent Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.’s quarterly earnings this year plunging 51%, but the lower profit did not deter the Calgary-based producer from showing off strong growth in oil and natural gas production.

Faced with inflated natural gas prices, Missouri’s top regulator has called on the state’s congressional delegation to seek additional federal low-income energy assistance dollars for Missouri families in need.

The Justice Department has begun an investigation into whether top officials at Royal Dutch/Shell Group broke any laws by failing to disclose earlier an overbooking of the company’s proven oil and natural gas reserves, a source close to the inquiry told the Houston Chronicle.

Intricate tax transactions enabled Enron to inflate its profits by nearly $1 billion between 1995 and 2001, exaggerating the size and scope of its operations, The Washington Post reported Wednesday after obtaining internal company documents from Enron’s former top tax executive.

Retail electric customers in Texas could end up paying hundreds of millions of dollars in inflated power rates because of industry influence on two Texas utility regulators, according to three lawsuits ongoing on behalf of a number of Texas cities.

The California Independent System Operator’s (Cal-ISO) claim that market power has inflated wholesale energy costs in the state by more than $6.2 billion since last May (see NGI, March 26) should be rejected because the figure came from a report that was approved by the organization’s illegally formed governing board, contends Williams Energy Marketing and Trading.