Patrick

ScottishPower subsidiary ENSTOR has laid out big plans in the gas storage business, announcing open seasons last week for a proposed field near the Waha Hub in West Texas and for existing capacity at the Katy Hub in East Texas and the Alberta Hub in western Canada.

Peoples Energy CEO Thomas M. Patrick said a review by the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) of the utility’s purchasing practices last year “will show that the company conducted its business prudently and that none of our practices increased costs to customers.” He added that the case is on a typical procedural schedule that would bring it to conclusion early in 2003.

In the wake of the recent court ruling upholding Order 637, FERC Chairman Patrick Wood said he now has an “open mind” about renewing the price-cap waiver on short-term capacity releases, when the agency’s two-year experiment in the natural gas transportation market comes to a close later this year.

It was two former FERC commissioners who recommended to then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush that he appoint a relative unknown at the time, Patrick Wood III, as a state regulator, Wood disclosed Thursday, dispelling reports that long-time Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay pulled political strings to get him the job.

If investigators find that Enron Corp. manipulated forward electricity markets, FERC Chairman Patrick Wood told a Senate hearing Tuesday that possibly the courts or state or federal regulators could void some of the high-priced, long-term power contracts on the West Coast.

The Senate approved the nominations of Texas regulator Patrick Henry Wood III and Pennsylvania regulator Nora Mead Brownell to the two vacant spots on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. In interviews with NGI on Friday Brownell and Wood said they are eager to get to work tackling the energy crisis out West and helping the rest of the country do some advance planning to prevent the crisis from spreading.

The Senate approved the nominations of Texas regulator Patrick Henry Wood III and Pennsylvania regulator Nora Mead Brownell to the two vacant spots on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. In interviews with NGI on Friday, Brownell and Wood said they are eager to get to work tackling the energy crisis out West and helping the rest of the country do some advance planning to prevent the crisis from spreading.

The White House last week forwarded to Capitol Hill the nominations of Texas regulator Patrick Wood III and Pennsylvania regulator Nora M. Brownell to sit on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

The White House yesterday formally sent its nomination of Texas regulator Patrick Wood III as a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to the Senate to begin confirmation hearings.