Pass

While McMoRan Exploration Co.’s amended application for its $900 million Main Pass Energy Hub (MPEH) project should satisfy one of Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s original sticking points, the application does not address her requirements for revenue sharing from liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects positioned offshore of the state.

While McMoRan Exploration Co.’s amended application for its $900 million Main Pass Energy Hub (MPEH) project should satisfy one of Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s original sticking points, the application does not address her requirements for revenue sharing from liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects positioned offshore of the state.

After its Main Pass Energy Hub (MPEH) proposed offshore liquefied natural gas project was denied by Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco early last month, McMoRan Exploration Co. said Thursday it has amended its license application in order to obtain approval.

With their current special session ending Thursday, Alaska lawmakers voiced skepticism that there would be time to pass bills to freeze oil taxes and make changes to the Alaska Stranded Gas Development Act sought by Gov. Frank Murkowski (see Daily GPI, June 2).

With forecasters continuing to call for Hurricane Wilma to pass up Gulf of Mexico infrastructure and hit Florida head-on instead, natural gas futures traders were freed up on Friday to explore support levels down around $12.70. After bouncing off $12.68 in the morning, November natural gas ended up settling at $12.872, down 10.5 cents on the day and 34.7 cents lower than the previous Friday’s close.

With the most contentious issue deep-sixed, House-Senate negotiators were expected to pass a conference report on the omnibus energy bill late Monday, making it possible for both houses of Congress to vote on legislation this week that would overhaul national energy policy for the first time in more than a decade and send it to President Bush before leaving for their August recess.

A top energy analyst believes there’s a 60% chance that Congress will pass an omnibus energy bill this year, although she doubts that lawmakers will meet President Bush’s request for the measure to be delivered to him by Aug. 1 (HR 6).

Florida Gas Transmission said Friday it is performing unscheduled maintenance on one of the three compressor units at its Sabine Pass (LA) interconnect with Transco. Starting with the Timely Cycle for Saturday’s gas day, FGT planned to reduce the interconnect capacity to 100,000 MMBtu/d. Current estimates indicate that the unit will be down for about two weeks. The pipeline also informed customers that operational capacity at its ANR interconnect in St. Landry Parish, LA was increased Friday from 125,000 Dth/d to 138,000 Dth/d until further notice. The capacity had been cut from its normal 250,000 MMBtu/d in mid-July due to reduced deliveries from ANR (see Daily GPI, July 16). An Overage Alert Day notice on FGT continued through at least Friday at 25% tolerance for negative imbalances.

With the assumption that the governor will sign the bill into law, California’s state Senate Monday unanimously okayed a final bailout for Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy with a law authorizing the utility to refinance part of its debt backed by a retail utility rate revenue stream. The so-called “dedicated rate component” is estimated to lower the overall cost of the PG&E utility’s financial reorganization by about $1 billion.