Interim

Responding to a motion from the California parties, FERC Thursday agreed to temporarily suspend its procedural schedule established in an interim guidance order it released last week. The federal regulatory process will wait for a ruling from a federal district court in New York City that has scheduled a hearing for Jan. 26 on the issue of Calpine Corp.’s bankruptcy court request to set aside eight of its power supply contracts because they are unprofitable for the Chapter 11-protected company.

In an interim 1Q2005 update, BP plc said overall oil and natural gas production is expected to be about 4.09 MMboe/d, which is about the same output level as the final quarter of 2004 and slightly higher than the 4.015 MMboe/d reported for the same period a year ago.

Facing higher natural gas costs, Unitil has filed an interim increase in its Cost of Gas Adjustment (CGA) factor with the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Energy (MDTE). If approved, a typical residential heating customer using 150 therms/month in the winter would see an increase of $11.06 or 5.4% over the current rates.

Kerr-McGee Corp. remains on track to hit its 2004 oil and natural gas production target of 310,000 boe/d, the company said Wednesday.

Recent filings made by Southern Company Services and Entergy Services Inc. aimed at satisfying new, interim generation market power tests adopted by FERC offer nothing that should preclude the federal agency from moving forward with Federal Power Act (FPA) Section 206 investigations of Southern and Entergy, generators told FERC this week.

Northeast Utilities’ (NU) board appointed Charles W. Shivery as its new chairman, president and CEO effective immediately. Shivery, who has been interim CEO since January when Michael G. Morris left to become CEO of American Electric Power, becomes NU’s sixth chairman in its 38-year history. Shivery, 58, was previously president of NU’s competitive group, responsible for the strategic growth and performance of NU’s competitive energy businesses, which include Select Energy, Select Energy Services, Northeast Generation Services and Northeast Generation Co., which together provide electricity, gas and specialized generation services in the 11 state region from Maine to Maryland. He joined NU in 2002, having retired earlier that year as co-president of the Constellation Energy Group, parent company of Baltimore Gas & Electric (BG&E).

An interim report issued on Wednesday by a U.S.-Canada joint task force examining the massive Aug. 14 blackout that cut through large swaths of the U.S. and Canada says that Ohio-based FirstEnergy Corp. and the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator (MISO) violated several voluntary reliability standards set by the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC).

Embattled Enron Corp. has decided to keep its interstate natural gas pipelines and intends to form a new company to oversee the assets, the company’s interim CEO Stephen Cooper said last Wednesday.

Embattled Enron Corp. has decided to keep its interstate natural gas pipelines and intends to form a new company to oversee the assets, the company’s interim CEO Stephen Cooper said Wednesday.