Panel

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has turned down petitioners who asked for a review of a Transportation Department order licensing Shell Gas and Power’s Gulf Landing LLC LNG import terminal offshore Louisiana.

As part of an industry panel that generally talked bullishly about investment in new transmission infrastructure, PG&E Corp.’s CFO Christopher Johns stressed his utility company’s increased interest in investing in new interstate natural gas and electric transmission projects. While PG&E doesn’t want to own liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals, the company wants to be able to access LNG wherever it lands in the West, Johns told a financial audience at the Citigroup’s First Annual Power, Gas and Utilities Conference in Miami, FL.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is expected to vote Wednesday on long-awaited legislation, sponsored by the panel’s leaders, that would open more of the natural gas-prone area known as Lease 181 to oil and gas drilling.

The future of added liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports in the United States, including the West Coast, is not a question of “if, but when,” according to a panel of industry executives speaking Tuesday at the “LDC Forum — Rockies & West” conference in Los Angeles. What this means to price volatility and supply reliability is still unclear, however.

It was all about the numbers for the last — and most spirited — witness panel before the Senate Energy Committee conference on natural gas last week. Debate erupted over both the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) weekly storage reports and the volatility and high prices of the natural gas futures market

Republican members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday picked Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) to be chairman of the powerful committee for a third year in a row.

With only two regularly scheduled meetings left before their six-year terms expire, two entrenched and embittered California regulators are not leaving quietly. This Thursday’s meeting is expected to see a continuation of the series of bitterly contested 3-2 splits with their three newer colleagues as the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) wades through an agenda full of potentially controversial energy items.

With only two regularly scheduled meetings left before their six-year terms expire, two entrenched and embittered California regulators are not leaving quietly. This Thursday’s meeting is expected to see a continuation of the series of bitterly contested 3-2 splits with their three newer colleagues as the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) wades through an agenda full of potentially controversial energy items.

A former El Paso Corp. energy trader and a ex-Dynegy Inc. trader will be tried separately early next year on charges of reporting bogus energy data to an industry publication. A Houston judge set the first trial for Jan. 12, with the second trial scheduled to immediately follow.