Issue

The Committee of Chief Risk Officers (CCRO), a coalition of 31 energy companies, issued a set of best practices for managing risk and recommended that all companies with significant merchant energy activities adopt the set, which covers best practices in the governance, valuation, credit risk management and disclosure aspects of merchant energy operations.

President Bush said Thursday the “energy bill’s an important issue,” but it was noticeably absent from his short list of legislative priorities for the new Republican-controlled Congress to tackle in the upcoming lame-duck session or early next year.

CenterPoint Energy Inc. (formerly Reliant Energy) is committed to reducing its debt and becoming more financially flexible. However, the credit ratings downgrade by Moody’s Investors Services to “junk” status points out the numerous financial problems still ahead for the Houston-based utility.

Talking to local news media in the state, a Nevada state senator earlier this week took on the case of Reno-based Sierra Pacific Resources and one of its two electric utilities, Nevada Power Co., which is the target of a local ballot measure on public power and a unsolicited bid by a local public-sector water agency that counts as one of its largest customers.

El Paso Natural Gas and affiliate El Paso Merchant Energy LP have called on FERC to issue a final decision by the end of the year in the high-profile complaint case, which charges the El Paso pipeline with withholding capacity from customers during the California energy crisis and abusing the Commission’s market-affiliate rules.

In an article about El Paso Tennessee Pipeline Co.’s second quarter appearing in the Aug. 15 issue of Daily GPI, it was incorrectly reported that the earnings of Tennessee Pipeline were not included in the consolidated financial report of El Paso Corp. Tennessee’s earnings, including writedowns totaling $342 million related to investments in power generation assets and oil reserves in financially-troubled Argentina in the first half of the year, were include in El Paso financials.

Interior Secretary Gale Norton told California earlier this month that the federal government will not buy back offshore oil/gas leases along the state’s coast as it had done recently for Florida, noting that the two states’ circumstances are markedly different. In a letter to state officials, Norton said Florida has opposed offshore drilling; California has not, an interpretation that drew immediate criticism from top state officials and environmental organizations.

California’s often-fragmented five-member regulatory commission Thursday approved an extension of Southern California Gas Co.’s six-year-old gas-purchase incentive program, including slashing by more than two-thirds the amount of incentives due to shareholders through the programs recent successes in lower overall supply costs. However, it made the unanimous (5-0) vote only after a split 3-2 vote defeated a preferred option by the panel’s chief regulator.

Sens. Frank Murkowski (R-AK) and Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) agreed Friday to work cooperatively on language in the Senate omnibus energy bill to reduce the risks tied to the construction of an Alaska natural gas pipeline from the North Slope to the Lower 48 states.