Jack

Natural gas, driven by a 100-year supply, will be the dominant fuel in the next 20 years, Calpine Corp. CEO Jack Fusco told an investor conference Wednesday in Houston.

Calling it a “rebirth” for combined-cycle plants, Calpine Corp. CEO Jack Fusco said Wednesday that natural gas-fired capacity factors are rising in the electric generation sector, but power prices must also rise to encourage the building of more replacement capacity.

With a 92-plant, 20-state fleet of predominantly natural gas-fired electric generation plants, Calpine Corp. CEO Jack Fusco on Tuesday predicted opportunities for his company on continuing low gas prices and an increasing number of coal-fired plants being retired.

In North Dakota where a quarter of the booming oil production in the Bakken Shale play is moved by rail car or truck — not pipeline — North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple Thursday urged the oil and gas industry to beef up the pipeline network in his state to keep up with rapidly growing production. Dalrymple spoke to more than 100 industry and government representatives at the state’s annual pipeline summit in Bismarck.

Whether the natural gas market is “proactive or reactive” today doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things, according to Bentek Energy’s Jack Weixel. Like the chicken or the egg metaphor, asking which came first, gross gas production or dry gas production is irrelevant when considering that today output is 20 Bcf/d higher than in 2006.

Whether the natural gas market is “proactive or reactive” today doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things, according to Bentek Energy’s Jack Weixel. Like the chicken or the egg metaphor, asking which came first, gross gas production or dry gas production is irrelevant when considering that today output is 20 Bcf/d higher than in 2006. The real question is how will the market adapt, or rather, what’s the market going to do with all the production?

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has named a retired brigadier general Jack Hagan director of the beefed up Consumer Protection and Safety Division (CPSD) at the CPUC. He starts the assignment April 23. Since the San Bruno pipeline explosion, more attention has been focused on this unit in the state regulatory commission. Hagan said his priority will be to “shift safety enforcement” emphasis from compliance to one of “ensuring that all regulated entities operate under a culture based on risk assessment.” Hagan retired in 1999 after 28 years as a Marine Corps infantry officer and was called back to service with the California governor’s Office of Homeland Security in 2003.

Even though he has suggested that a large amount of U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports could eventually jack up Henry Hub prices by as much as $1.40/Mcf by 2018, Robert Brooks, a founder of RBAC consultants in Los Angeles, told NGI Thursday there is great uncertainty surrounding any such predictions.

U.S energy policy is on the “wrong track” and has been for several years, said American Petroleum Institute (API) President Jack Gerard last week. He called for the government to make a “course correction” by opening more public onshore and offshore lands to producers, which he said would significantly bolster employment and increase revenues to the federal government.