Keeping

Portland, OR-based Northwest Natural Gas Co. (NNG) Monday is keeping its 2002 earning estimates at the $1.90 to $2.05/share level, attributing a lot of the good news to an approved settlement it reached earlier with the Oregon Public Utilities Commission (PUC). These estimates take into consideration a one-time, second quarter charge of 32 cents/share for NNG’s failed bid to buy neighboring utility Portland General Electric (PGE) from bankruptcy-mired Enron Corp.

In keeping with its plan to merge with National Grid USA and focus on regulated energy transmission and distribution businesses, Niagara Mohawk Holdings Inc. on Tuesday sold its unregulated energy marketing and services subsidiary to Select Energy Inc., a subsidiary of Northeast Utilities. Terms of the sale of Niagara Mohawk Energy Marketing Inc., were not disclosed.

In keeping with policy directives in President Bush’s national energy strategy, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham announced this week that the Department of Energy (DOE) will undertake a full-scale review of ongoing federal oil and natural gas research programs.

Kern River Gas Transmission appears to have pulled off a coup in the competition to serve new merchant electric generation loads in California’s frenetic race to build new in-state power plants in its plans to construct a 32-mile, 24-inch-diameter pipeline extension directly to the 750-MW High Desert Power Plant now under construction in the open spaces about 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles.

The cash market began what several sources believed could be a fairly lengthy period of downward price consolidation Wednesday. Numbers generally fell between a dime and 20 cents in eastern markets and at Permian Basin/Waha and Pacific Northwest points, while other western prices took an even heavier beating.

Despite their success in keeping the market in negative territory for most of Thursday’s trading session, natural gas bears had very little to show for their efforts. Since plummeting 13 cents in the minutes following a larger-than-expected storage injection Wednesday, July natural gas futures have actually gained ground, with prices rising late Wednesday and then hanging around the $3.80 level yesterday. Although the change column shows a 1.1-cent decline for the day, it belies the market’s inability not only to test support at $3.67, but also to make a lower-low on the day.

In keeping with the recent buzz of increased liquefied natural gas (LNG) activity across the country, Texaco revealled last week that it is studying the development of a new LNG receiving and regasification terminal in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, while Shell International Gas Ltd. said that it has acquired up to 3.7 million tons of LNG from the North West Shelf (NWS) project in Australia for delivery to the Americas. Meanwhile, United Kingdom-based BG Group reported that it recently inked a 22-year contract with CMS Energy Corp.’s subsidiary, Trunkline LNG Co., for all of the current uncommitted capacity at CMS’s Lake Charles, LA, LNG terminal.

In keeping with the recent buzz of increased liquefied natural gas (LNG) activity across the country, Texaco reported on Tuesday that it is currently studying the development of a new LNG receiving and regasification terminal in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, while Shell International Gas Ltd. said that it has acquired up to 3.7 million tons of LNG from the North West Shelf (NWS) project in Australia for delivery to the Americas.

Begin early and work overtime to keep what you got — that was the advice of an Offshore Technology Conference panel last week on how to recruit for the oil and gas field. Demand is especially high for experience from top to bottom, which has led to a high turnover as companies aggressively go after other company employees.