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The likelihood that Mexico will open its oil and natural gas sector to more outside investment appeared slim to none Monday after some of the country’s lawmakers reportedly barricaded the podium in the lower house of Congress to protest the reform proposals.

After two weeks, none of California’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) proponents or regulators are clear on what, if any, impact a new California Maritime Security Council might have on the review process for up to four proposed LNG receiving terminals along the Southern California coast. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger created the council with an executive order issued Oct. 12, and so far no one among the LNG crowd has commented much.

None of the senior executives ousted by Royal Dutch/Shell Group will receive annual bonuses for 2003, the company said in an annual report issued Friday. The company also will not pay bonuses to its current management team because production targets were not met last year.

MidAmerican Energy Holdings subsidiary Northern Natural Gas said five employees were injured, none seriously, in an explosion and fire Tuesday morning at its Bushton Compressor Station in central Kansas. The company said the explosion did not disrupt market deliveries but gas did have to be rerouted around the station.

Without real independence that is not possible with a single-state ISO, none of the recommended fixes will work for California’s beleaguered nonprofit electric transmission grid operator, Cal-ISO, according to a third-party audit ordered by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission released on Friday.

El Paso Corp.’s quick response to negative reports about its off-balance sheet transactions may have stopped its stock from sliding even further Tuesday, finally closing down almost 7% to $39.17. The stock had slid to almost $36 early in the day after rumors surfaced that the Houston-based company had conducted related-party deals similar to those conducted by bankrupt Enron Corp.

Information was shared, but nothing was decided, and none of the independent natural gas producers think that California production will increase any significant amount because of a meeting Tuesday with Pacific Gas and Electric’s gas utility officials trying to both get and give information on two issues: new in-state hook-ups and the utility’s old gathering pipelines.

Although none of the public proponents of liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals on north Baja California’s west coast in Mexico have permits from the Mexican government as yet, environmental issues and processing questions are being raised south of the U.S. border, according to a report Tuesday in the Los Angeles Times. One of the LNG terminal sponsors, El Paso Natural Gas, downplayed a recent local land-use permit denial from the Rosarito municipal government in which El Paso has a 100-acre proposed terminal site.

Cash prices plummeted by about a quarter or more nearly across the board Thursday, ignoring an essentially flat screen during the morning that eventually eked out a gain of nearly 7 cents. The market rout had been signaled the day before by a futures dive in response to a larger-than-expected storage injection report, late retreats in Wednesday morning’s cash trading and reports of big drops in both on-line trading for Friday and and rest-of-month baseload numbers.