Pending

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Utah state office has delayed completing the sale of all 31 of the oil and natural gas lease parcels won by bidders at auction Tuesday pending additional reviews.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) has blasted a bill pending in the Florida House of Representatives that would give Gov. Charlie Crist and the cabinet the authority to consider and accept bids to explore for oil and natural gas in state waters.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) has blasted a bill pending in the Florida House of Representatives that would give Gov. Charlie Crist and the cabinet the authority to consider and accept bids to explore for oil and natural gas in state waters.

Idaho regulators suspended pending electric and natural gas rate increases from Spokane, WA-based Avista Utilities Thursday and announced a settlement had been reached on a second (electric) rate case involving Salt Lake City-based Rocky Mountain Power, a PacifiCorp utility. The Idaho Public Utilities Commission (PUC) set Feb. 25 as the deadline for parties to intervene in the Avista case, and it scheduled hearings March 11 and 17 on the rate settlement for the PacifiCorp unit.

Portland, OR-based Northwest Natural Gas Co. said Tuesday it filed an all-party settlement in its pending general rate case with Washington state regulators. The application was filed last March for the 10% of the gas-only distribution utility’s customers who are located in Washington, seeking an average 4.8% increase in overall rates, its first such request in five years.

Spokane, WA-based Avista Utilities told the Idaho Public Utilities Commission (PUC) that it was lowering its pending purchased gas cost adjustment (PGA) rate increase request from 14% to 4% for its 72,000 natural gas utility customers in the northern part of the state. In August Avista asked the PUC for the rate increase to cover its current and future wholesale costs of gas, effective Oct. 1 (see Daily GPI, Aug. 20). The revised request lowers Avista’s requested increase in annual revenues to $3.3 million from the original $11.6 million in its filing. The PUC said that its public comment period ends Monday (Sept. 23). Under the Idaho PUC PGA process, the utilities file annually to reflect changes in purchased gas costs. A portion of the PGA is a projection of what costs will be during the next year, but since the projections are never exact, the PGA is adjusted every 12 months to match projected and actual costs. For the average Avista gas customer using about 65 therms monthly, the lowered PGA increase would add about $3/month to bills.

As CME Group and Nymex Holdings continue to keep their fingers crossed that stockholders and members will vote through their pending $8.4 billion merger, the companies reported Friday that the closing date of the union is scheduled for Aug. 22. If the deal is consummated, Nymex Holdings will merge with and into CMEG NY Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of CME Group.

As CME Group and Nymex Holdings continue to keep their fingers crossed that stockholders and members will vote through their pending $8.4 billion merger on Monday, the companies reported Friday that the closing date of the union is scheduled for Aug. 22. If the deal is consummated, Nymex Holdings will merge with and into CMEG NY Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of CME Group.

In what brings to an end nearly all the major lawsuits still pending against the failed energy trader formerly known as Enron Corp., Citigroup will pay Enron Creditors Recovery Corp. $1.66 billion under terms of a MegaClaims settlement approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. The settlement was reached March 26, Enron said. Citigroup also agreed that indemnification claims, to which the bankruptcy court had already established a $4 billion claim reserve, and an additional $249.4 million of claims against the Enron estate held by the bank, would be waived. In addition to the cash settlement, about $1.7 billion of cash held in a disputed claims reserve will be included in a special distribution to creditors in the near term, Enron said. “The settlement with Citigroup marks an important milestone in winding up the Enron estate,” said Enron CEO John Ray III. “Upon implementation of the settlement, the Enron estate expects to return approximately $5 billion to creditors, which brings us to nearly $20 billion in total returned to creditors.”