Nick

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) has now filled its expanded senior leadership team for gas operations under Executive Vice President Nick Stavropoulos, who joined the San Francisco-based combination utility last year to head up a reorganized and more independent gas operating unit. Kevin Knapp signed on as vice president for gas distribution in March, bringing 30 years of industry experience, including National Grid and KeySpan; and Sean Kolassa assumed the new position of vice president, investment planning in February, bringing 15 years of gas experience. In addition, Roland Trevino, vice president for public safety and integrity management, joined PG&E last August after being a senior director at El Paso Natural Gas in Colorado. They join Mel Christopher, senior director for gas system operations, who also brought 30 years of gas industry when he joined PG&E last June. The other gas team leaders include PG&E veterans Kirk Johnson, vice president for gas transmission; Sumeet Singh, senior director of asset knowledge management who previously headed gas engineering operations; and Jane Yura, vice president for standards and policies.

Mainland Resources Inc. is poking around in a portion of the Haynesville Shale in Mississippi that has been largely unexplored. The Houston-based independent said Thursday its Burkley-Phillips No. 1 well on the Buena Vista prospect in Jefferson County has penetrated the top of the target Haynesville at a depth of 19,980 feet.

Key Democrats Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV and Rep. Nick Rahall, who are both from the coal-mining state of West Virginia, introduced legislation last Thursday to suspend for two years potential Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from stationary sources, such as coal-fired power plants.

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall (D-WV) has introduced a comprehensive bill, the Consolidated Land, Energy, and Aquatic Resources (CLEAR) Act of 2009, to restructure regulation of energy leasing on federal lands and the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), including consolidating energy and mineral leasing programs, raising lease rental rates, assessing fees for nonproducing leases and ending the royalty-in-kind program.

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall (D-WV) has introduced a comprehensive bill, the Consolidated Land, Energy, and Aquatic Resources (CLEAR) Act of 2009, to restructure regulation of energy leasing on federal lands and the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), including consolidating energy and mineral leasing programs, raising lease rental rates, assessing fees for nonproducing leases and ending the royalty-in-kind program.

Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, is backing Rep. Raul M. Grijalva (D-AZ) to be secretary of the Department of Interior in the Obama administration.

Capping off two grueling days of markup, Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, announced last Thursday that the “last and most important votes” on his controversial energy policy reform bill (HR 2337) would be delayed for nearly a week — until this Wednesday. The delay offered the energy industry the chance to make one last pitch to committee members to change their minds and votes on a measure that has the potential to significantly impact oil and natural gas supply and prices.

Rep. Nick J. Rahall (D-WV), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, last week unveiled an ambitious Energy Policy Reform and Revitalization Act of 2007, which, among other things, would amend the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct) and require the Minerals Management Service (MMS) to perform at least 550 audits of oil and natural gas leases every fiscal year beginning in 2009.

Rep. Nick J. Rahall (D-WV), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, unveiled the Energy Policy Reform and Revitalization Act of 2007, which, among other things, would amend the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct) and require the Minerals Management Service (MMS) to perform at least 550 audits of oil and natural gas leases every fiscal year beginning in 2009.