Needs

Enron Corp. has asked the federal bankruptcy court for an eight-month extension to file a reorganization plan, which would mean that its 350,000-plus creditors may have to wait longer to be paid the $49 billion they are owed. Enron said it needed more time to “develop and implement a viable long-term business plan” that would also allow creditors to evaluate where they stand.

Although the nation needs to await the completion of a “full autopsy” on Enron Corp., an initial analysis using public financial documents shows that the Houston energy trading giant was marked by “income that seldom matched its cash flows,” according to Portland, OR-based energy economist Robert McCullough, speaking Friday to an industry conference in Seattle, WA.

FERC needs to take a second look at a recent order in which the federal agency modified its previously instituted West-wide price mitigation methodology for electricity during the winter months, the California Electricity Oversight Board (CEOB) told the Commission last Thursday. The CEOB, among other things, worries that the move could have the unintended consequence of stoking anti-competitive market behavior.

Natural gas marketers might save a few pennies on each trade by doing their business online rather than over the phone, and they probably will handle more volume, but at some point in time it’s going to come back to haunt them, said Kevin Huntsman of Mastio & Company. Mastio just released its fifth customer satisfaction ranking of gas marketers, and the results are a little scary for many of the mega marketers, who boast about huge gas volumes but often have very few satisfied customers.

Natural gas marketers might save a few pennies on each trade by doing their business online rather than over the phone, and they probably will handle more volume, but at some point in time it’s going to come back to haunt them, said Kevin Huntsman of Mastio & Company. Mastio just released its fifth customer satisfaction ranking of gas marketers and the results are a little scary for many of the mega marketers, who boast about huge gas volumes, but often have very few satisfied customers.

While the world has “plenty” of energy reserves to meet its needs over the next two decades, supply is not guaranteed, and “massive” investments will be required in both infrastructure and technology to solve the problem, according to a study by the International Energy Agency (IEA). The French organization released its “World Energy Outlook 2001 Insights: Assessing Today’s Supplies to Fuel Tomorrow’s Growth,” which offers conclusions by 15 analysts from around the world.

In the next five years, Mexican oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) needs to spend up to $33 billion on exploration and production activities or its crude and natural gas production could decline by as much as one third, forcing the country to become more of an importer than an exporter, according to the company’s director. Mexico currently is the seventh largest oil producer in the world, and is one of the top three exporters to the United States.

A multi-year alliance will give Constellation Power Source the right to manage the Texas power resource needs for TNP Enterprises Inc.’s Texas-New Mexico Power Co. (TNMP) and First Choice Power under an agreement announced Wednesday. The Constellation Energy Group unit will manage about 1,100 MW under an agreement made through a competitive selection process begun by TNP last October. No financial details were disclosed.

There will be ample natural gas to meet the needs of power generators this summer and to inject into storage for next winter due to the growing number of industrial customers exiting the gas market as a result of escalating prices, said trading executives last week.