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Magnum Hunter Resources Inc. got a little larger on Monday as it reported it has entered into a purchase and sale agreement with Denver-based Mallon Resources Corp. for the acquisition of Mallon’s Delaware Basin oil and natural gas reserves and related assets located in Eddy and Lee counties of southeast New Mexico. As of Dec. 31, 2000 these properties had proved reserves of 41.8 Bcfe. The company said the total purchase price is nearly $32 million.

Pressured by another large storage injection made even larger by a 14 Bcf revision, natural gas futures sunk lower Wednesday as traders once again set their sights on the sub-$3.00 level. However, similar to other moves down toward that level of support, yesterday’s selling was unable to demote prices beneath the $3.00 mark. The August contract settled at $3.087, down 7.8 cents for the day and just pennies above its $3.055 low.

Duke Energy Field Services (DEFS) grabbed itself a much larger piece of the natural gas midstream segment in the Gulf of Mexico this week as the company announced that it has purchased the former MCN Investment Corp.’s ownership interest in Dauphin Island Gathering Partners (DIGP), Mobile Bay Processing Partners (MBPP) and Gulf Coast NGL Pipeline, LLC (Gulf Coast). Terms of the transaction, which closed on July 11, were not disclosed.

Muscling in on recent announcements by much larger U.S. energy companies, Houston-based independent Cheniere Energy Inc. said last week that it is acquiring three land lease options in Texas to develop liquefied natural gas terminals along the Gulf Coast. Though no details about the locations were disclosed, Cheniere expects each terminal to initially process 200 Bcf/year and be operational within six years.

Muscling in on recent announcements by much larger U.S. energy companies, Houston-based independent Cheniere Energy Inc. announced Tuesday that it is acquiring three land lease options in Texas to develop liquefied natural gas terminals along the Gulf Coast. Though no details about the locations were disclosed, Cheniere expects each terminal to initially process 200 Bcf/year and be operational within six years.

A bid by GPU to raise rates by approximately $316 million in Pennsylvania is quickly turning into a larger debate over whether the utility should be allowed to avoid electricity rate caps already in place in the state. As the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission prepares to consider GPU’s rate increase request later this week, the plan has received criticism from a number of fronts, including PUC Commissioner Nora Mead Brownell and Pennsylvania’s consumer advocate.

As the balance of power shifted in the Senate last week from Republicans to Democrats, members from both sides of the aisle offered up plenty of hints that the contentious issue of reining in California’s runaway wholesale energy prices will be in play over the next couple of weeks. Democrats said they may take action on legislation that would direct FERC to set cost-based rates to ensure just and reasonable wholesale energy prices in the state, while Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-AK), the outgoing Senate Energy and Natural Resources chairman, indicated flexibility on the subject, but not if such open-mindedness means sacrificing additional generation in California.

A bid by GPU to raise rates by approximately $316 million in Pennsylvania is quickly turning into a larger debate over whether the utility should be allowed to avoid electricity rate caps already in place in the state. As the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission prepares to consider GPU’s rate increase request later this week, the plan has received criticism from a number of fronts, including PUC Commissioner Nora Mead Brownell and Pennsylvania’s consumer advocate.

As the price and availability of electricity looms ever larger as a topic of national debate, public power is getting a closer look from industrial and commercial power users and that growing interest in public power is occurring not just in places where you would expect it, like California, but across all regions of the country. So says Carmine Grastataro, senior vice president at RKS Research & Consulting, who sat down with NGI for a brief interview after appearing before a panel at NGI’s GasMart/Power 2001 conference in Tampa, FL, last Thursday.