Later

In preparation for an emergency summit later this week of the National Petroleum Council (NPC) on natural gas issues, the Industrial Energy Consumers of America (IECA) sent Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham a list of short- and medium-term recommendations on how to deal with the “natural gas crisis that is dismantling the nation’s manufacturing base.”

Entergy Corp. has hired Jerald V. Halvorsen to head its Washington, DC, government relations office. Halvorsen will be retiring later this year as president of the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, the interstate gas pipeline industry’s main advocacy group in the nation’s capitol. He has been president of INGAA since 1987. Halvorsen will join Entergy as vice president, federal governmental affairs on Sept. 1 and will succeed S. M. Henry Brown Jr., who will retire Dec. 1. Prior to joining INGAA, Halvorsen was vice president for government affairs of the American Trucking Association. He also served as senior vice president for congressional affairs of the National Coal Association. He began his career with Consolidated Edison Co. in New York City in 1969, serving as coordinator of environmental affairs. Entergy owns and operates power plants with about 30,000 MW of electric generating capacity and delivers electricity to 2.6 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

In a delayed reaction to bearish storage data released Thursday that revealed the first net refill of the 2003 injection season, natural gas futures dipped lower Friday as commercial traders continued to liquidate their long positions. Not even double-digit rises in physical market prices could support May futures, which lacked originality by closing at the same price — $5.146 — as the final expiration of the April contract Thursday. At 44,630, estimated volume was extremely light ahead of the weekend.

When a portion of Mexico’s gas-rich Burgos Basin opens to foreign investment as expected later this year, the progress of investment and development will be a critical test case for both foreign industry and the Mexican government, according to the authors of a new research report by Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA).

In a letter to employees last Monday, which was later filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), El Paso Corp. Chairman William Wise attempted to dispel any fears that the energy giant was in danger of crumbling, assuring workers it had about $1.5 billion of readily available cash, a balance sheet and credit profile that were “strong and improving,” an investment grade credit rating, and “adequate financial resources” to meet all of the company’s obligations and to maintain “profitable operations” during the current crisis facing the industry. Although the company was tested with the rest of the merchant energy sector last week, El Paso weathered the storm better than many others.

FERC staff plans to hold two joint technical conferences later this month with the Department of Transportation’s Office of Pipeline Safety (OPS) and Department of Energy (DOE) to discuss how to rebuild the natural gas pipeline infrastructure and apportion gas supplies in the event of a disaster — natural or otherwise.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has enjoined the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) from enforcing its open-ended reporting requirement on natural gas pipelines operating offshore, ruling that the agency far exceeded its authority under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) when it took this action nearly two years ago.

With a second merchant underground storage field set to open in the northern half of the state later this year and an existing one in the north proposing a sizable expansion, the push for at least one, if not two, new storage fields in Southern California has heated up this summer, according to industry observers.

With a second merchant underground storage field set to open in the northern half of the state later this year and an existing one in the north proposing a sizable expansion, the push for at least one, if not two, new storage fields in Southern California has heated up this summer, according to industry observers.