Issue

IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) took issue Thursday with an announcement made by the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) a day earlier concerning a judge’s decision in their legal battle. Nymex had announced that the judge ruled on the merits on the case and dismissed four out of five counterclaims made by ICE against Nymex. But ICE said that’s not entirely true. In fact, the judge left open the possibility that ICE could file amended counterclaims and continue its fight (see Daily GPI, Aug. 14).

While the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) prepares to issue a pronouncement Wednesday that is expected to endorse an industry consensus for adjustments to the current natural gas and power price reporting function, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is considering adding a provision to the energy bill that would regulate price publishers under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), according to Senate sources.

At a time when good news is not always easy to find, San Francisco-based PG&E Corp. late Thursday received belated word of a favorable ruling from a federal appeals court judge in its headquarters city, rejecting a suit from the California Attorney General’s Office related to keeping separate from its utility’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy the assets of the corporation and its other, non-utility companies.

The biggest issue in natural gas price reporting today is the lack of liquidity, or low level of fixed price trading in the monthly market due mainly to the loss of the middleman marketers, price survey publishers told attendees at GasMart/Power 2003 Wednesday.

The biggest issue in natural gas price reporting today is the lack of liquidity, or low level of fixed price trading in the monthly market due mainly to the loss of the middleman marketers, price survey publishers told attendees at GasMart/Power 2003 Wednesday.

The Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA) on Friday took issue with a number of recent decisions that it said indicate FERC is intent on establishing generic creditworthiness standards for natural gas pipelines.

Cabot Oil and Gas took issue with the negative way in which it’s 2002 financial and performance results were characterized in a story that ran in Daily GPI on Feb. 25. Although Cabot’s net income per share declined to 65 cents last year from $1.71 the prior year, its fourth quarter net income per share was up to 36 cents from to a loss in 4Q2001 of 34 cents. The company also showed strong performance results. “When you look at year over year, it was not as good as the year before in terms of dollars. But in terms of production, we produced a double digit production jump of 12%, we had our second highest level of discretionary cash flow and we reduced debt by $28 million,” said Cabot spokeswoman Karin Thorton. “Those are all positive.” Lower realized commodity prices were the main factor in the decline in reported results, the company said. Its average realized natural gas price fell more than 30% in 2002 to $3.02/Mcf compared to an average realization of $4.36/Mcf in 2001. Oil prices declined from $24.91 to $23.79 per barrel. For 2002, Cabot reported equivalent production of 91.1 Bcfe, compared to 81.1 Bcfe produced in 2001.

After waiting more than two years, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is scheduled to disclose Tuesday the results of its investigation into the cause of the explosion on the El Paso Natural Gas South Mainline system in New Mexico that killed 12 members of an extended family in August 2000.

After waiting more than two years, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is expected to release its final report next week on the cause of the explosion on the El Paso Natural Gas South Mainline system in New Mexico that killed 12 members of an extended family in August 2000.