Offered

FERC staff has offered the industry and price developers another opportunity to comment on the current state of natural gas and electricity price formation and to say whether there has been any increase in confidence in natural gas and electric price indices.

Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex), Mexico’s state-owned oil and gas company, received no bids by the deadline Wednesday for its Ricos natural gas block, located in the Burgos Basin. It was the second week in a row that Pemex failed to attract even one bidder to produce non-associated gas in the northeast Mexico basin.

No bids were offered by any producers to explore Mexico’s Corindon-Pandura natural gas block in the Burgos Basin, and a spokesman for Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) said Wednesday that it now may consider whether to open a new bid process or assign the block to a specific company. Under its new Multiple Service Contract (MSC) plan, Mexico’s state oil monopoly opened up bidding on seven blocks of the gas-rich basin that borders Texas’ border to offer private companies the opportunity to explore for non-associated gas. Three blocks already have been tendered, but Pemex only received one bid for each of them. Pemex had planned to tender all of the bids by Nov. 19. Sergio Guaso, who is in charge of Pemex’s MSCs, told Reuters, “this is not good news, but it is not the end of the project.” He said Pemex may re-bid the block, resize it and reevaluate the scope of the contract or assign it directly to a specific company. Pemex will review why the block did not receive bids and then meet with potential bidders to decide how to proceed. The three remaining blocks will be auctioned on schedule, he added.

No companies offered bids to explore Mexico’s Corindon-Pandura natural gas block in the Burgos Basin, and a spokesman for Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) said Wednesday that it would consider whether to open a new bid process or assign it to a specific company.

Skipping Stone, a Houston consulting firm, has offered its solution to the natural gas pricing and index issue. It advocates the creation of a non-profit data aggregator, The Energy Transaction Repository (ETR), to collect transaction data from market participants and provide services to match, verify and confirm the transactions.

Sens. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) and John McCain (R-AZ) have offered up a legislative proposal that would place limits on the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. power plants and other sectors of the economy. The legislation also provides for the trading of emissions allowances and includes penalty provisions for companies failing to meet emissions limits set out in the proposed legislation.

House negotiators conferring on broad energy legislation (H.R. 4) offered last week to more than double the size of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in exchange for their Senate counterparts agreeing to allow oil and natural gas drilling on a 2,000-acre “footprint” in the Alaska wilderness region.

House negotiators conferring on broad energy legislation (H.R. 4) offered Wednesday to expand the size of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) by 10 million acres in exchange for their Senate counterparts agreeing to allow oil and natural gas drilling on a 2,000-acre “footprint” in the Alaska wilderness region.

Transwestern Pipeline has offered a proposed settlement that seeks to resolve FERC’s concerns over the high transportation rates the pipeline charged customers during the California energy crisis under index-based negotiated rate agreements (see NGI, July 22). It has asked the Commission to schedule settlement talks within 30 days to discuss the issue of refunds.