Narrowly

The Senate narrowly defeated a Republican measure last Thursday that would have cleared the way for the exploration and production of natural gas off of Viginia’s shoreline. The vote underscored the Democrats’ unshakable stance against opeining up additional offshore regions to energy activity.

The Senate narrowly defeated a Republican measure Thursday that would have cleared the way for the exploration and production of natural gas off of Virginia’s shoreline. The vote underscored the Democrats’ unshakable stance against opening additional offshore regions to energy activity.

A House Appropriations subcommittee on Wednesday narrowly approved a $142 billion spending bill that would provide slightly more than $2 billion to help needy consumers pay their energy bills in fiscal year 2007.

FERC Commissioner Nora Brownell sees a “growing belief” that the power industry’s planning process “is narrowly focused and isn’t particularly inclusive, nor is it transparent.”

Calendar year 2005 had the highest global surface temperature in more than a century, narrowly edging out 1998 — the warmest previous year — as the warmest year on record, according to James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

The Senate on Thursday narrowly approved as part of the omnibus energy bill a renewable portfolio standard (RPS) that mandates the increased use of renewable energy in the production of electricity, a move that could eventually reduce the amount of natural gas consumed by the generation sector and cause gas prices to taper off somewhat.

In a significant victory for pro-drilling forces, Senate Republicans last Wednesday narrowly approved opening up a portion of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil and natural gas development.

In a significant victory for pro-drilling forces, Senate Republicans on Wednesday narrowly approved opening up a portion of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil and natural gas development.

With little in the way of fresh fundamental news and plenty of uncertainty ahead of Thursday’s storage report, natural gas futures traders played it close to their vests Tuesday. The July contract had a hard time mustering either a rally or a decline as it managed only an 11-cent trading range. It closed at $5.712, up 0.6 cents for the session. At just 62,296 contracts, estimated volume was light for the second day in a row.