Millions

Hurricane Isabel left her calling card up and down the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern parts of the U.S. on Thursday in the form of massive power outages, with 5.5 million businesses and homes estimated to have had their juice cut off as a result of the massive storm. Columbia Gas Transmission Corp. gave shippers advance notice Friday that it may have to call an operational flow order (OFO) because markets in southeastern Virginia were taking gas at abnormally low levels because of the power outages.

Oil and natural gas-rich Kern County in the southern end of California’s San Joaquin Valley went to court last week to uphold Occidental Petroleum Corp.’s past and future property tax bills on the former U.S. Naval Petroleum Reserve at nearby Elk Hills. At stake is up to $73 million of past taxes that Oxy argues should be refunded, along with future tax bills of $7.5 million annually.

Oil and natural gas-rich Kern County in the southern end of California’s San Joaquin Valley went to court last week to uphold Occidental Petroleum Corp.’s past and future property tax bills on the former U.S. Naval Petroleum Reserve at nearby Elk Hills

Retail electric customers in Texas could end up paying hundreds of millions of dollars in inflated power rates because of industry influence on two Texas utility regulators, according to three lawsuits ongoing on behalf of a number of Texas cities.

The legal problems of Mountain Energy Corp., a Midwest gasmarketer that has been accused of defrauding customers andsuppliers out of millions of dollars, are mounting.

Anadarko Energy Services has accused Mountain Energy Corp., agas marketer in Kansas City, MO, and the company owners ofallegedly defrauding it out of millions of dollars throughnon-payment of natural gas, as well as theft of gas in storage.

The Supreme Court last week refused to review a case in whichKansas gas producers could wind up paying millions of dollars incustomer refunds for selling gas in the 1980s at prices that,because they incorporated the state’s ad valorem tax, may have beenabove the allowed legal limit.

You shouldn’t unless you were one of the thousands of workerswho spent millions of person-hours over the last few years sweatingthe millennium bug out of your company’s systems. If that was you,congratulations; you’ve made this last new year slightly morememorable than Hands Across America Day. Now it’s time for anyfood-hoarding doomsayers to get busy: You’ve got a lot ofstockpiled chips and salsa to get rid of.

You shouldn’t unless you were one of the thousands of workerswho spent millions of person-hours over the last few years sweatingthe millennium bug out of your company’s systems. If that was you,congratulations; you’ve made this last new year slightly morememorable than Hands Across America Day. Now it’s time for anyfood-hoarding doomsayers to get busy: You’ve got a lot ofstockpiled chips and salsa to get rid of.