Joined

MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company (MEHC) Chairman and CEO David Sokol joined Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski in Fairbanks Thursday in announcing a preliminary filing with the state for favorable tax treatment to build the Alaska portion of a 4.5 Bcf/d gas pipeline to deliver North Slope natural gas to markets in the Midwest.

MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company (MEHC) Chairman and CEO David Sokol joined Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski in Fairbanks Thursday in announcing a preliminary filing with the state for favorable tax treatment to build the Alaska portion of a 4.5 Bcf/d gas pipeline to deliver North Slope natural gas to markets in the Midwest.

A voice on the buyer side of the natural gas market joined a supplier chorus in making a Canadian counterpart to the appeals of American producers for improved access to resource development targets in the United States.

ConocoPhillips has appointed Chris Conway as president of ConocoPhillips Gas and Power. He replaces J. Mike Stice, who was recently named president of ConocoPhillips Qatar. Conway joined the company 23 years ago and was most recently general manager of ConocoPhillips’ Americas crude supply and trading operations. He has also served as manager of the company’s specialty products unit and manager of strategy and business development for European refining and marketing. Stice, who was president of ConocoPhillips Gas and Power for five years, will lead all aspects of the company’s Qatar liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, including the upstream and shipping aspects. In July, Qatar Petroleum and ConocoPhillips announced the signing of a Heads of Agreement for the development of Qatargas 3, a large-scale LNG project located in Qatar to service the U.S. natural gas market.

Paramount Energy Trust said last week that has joined forces with several other producers, including Devon Canada, BP Canada, Canadian Natural Resources and ProGas, to take legal action against the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board’s (AEUB) decision to shut in as many as 938 gas wells in northeastern Alberta starting today. The shut-in order is designed to conserve underground pressure and preserve future crude bitumen production.

State commissioners have joined the ranks of those touting the wonders of imported liquefied natural gas (LNG). The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), noting the importance of increasing natural gas supplies, passed a resolution at its summer meeting last Wednesday encouraging cooperation of state and federal agencies in the siting of LNG regasification terminals.

All points joined Monday in rebounding from weekend softness, but except for sizable transportation constraint-linked gains of 30 cents or so at the Southern California border, San Juan Basin and the Rockies, other advances were more moderate at about 15 cents or less.

Former Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line General Manager Gary D. Lauderdale has joined Houston-based consulting firm Lukens Energy Group as a managing director in the firm’s Strategy Advisory practice area. Lauderdale recently retired from Williams Companies after more than 30 years of service. At Lukens, Lauderdale will offer consulting services related to the overall commercial and operational management of natural gas companies, including issues related to corporate strategy, post-merger integration, corporate downsizing, business process improvement, contract negotiation and dispute resolution. Jay Lukens, president of Lukens Energy Group, said Lauderdale will be “a key player as Lukens Energy Group helps the industry consider ‘what’s next?’ The energy industry is at a precarious point in its evolution. With the melt-down of merchant energy, high natural gas prices and concerns about future energy supplies, many companies are uncertain as to where to go from here.”

Rockies points abandoned their contrarian softness tendency from the day before and joined the overall market in across-the-board price gains Tuesday in response to wintry weather engulfing most of the U.S. and Canada. Once again the icy Northeast led the upward charge with varied gains ranging from about a quarter (Texas Eastern M-3) to more than a dollar (Tennessee Zone 6). Otherwise, increases ran from a nickel to a little more than a quarter.