Pioneering

The Bakken play in North Dakota and parts of Montana holds a potential 24 billion boe in oil, liquids and natural gas, according to the CEO of one of the Bakken’s pioneering independent exploration and production (E&P) companies.

Pioneering shale gas producers and those following in their footsteps have come a long way in the technology and know-how department. Their growing wisdom has paid off in setting the country on a course for a new peak in gas production, according to Bentek Energy LLC CEO Porter Bennett.

Pioneering shale gas producers and those following in their footsteps have come a long way in the technology and know-how department. Their growing wisdom has paid off in setting the country on a course for a new peak in gas production, according to Bentek Energy LLC CEO Porter Bennett.

A pioneering firm in California’s ill-fated competitive retail electricity market, Costa Mesa, CA-based Commerce Energy Group Inc., finds itself mired in a sea of red ink as it compiles its fiscal 2008 results, selling off a Houston-based energy consulting firm it acquired four years ago after announcing earlier this year that it was cutting about one-third of its work force.

A pioneering firm in California’s ill-fated competitive retail electricity market, Costa Mesa, CA-based Commerce Energy Group Inc., is mired in a sea of red ink as it compiles its fiscal 2008 results, selling off a Houston-based energy consulting firm it acquired four years ago and announcing earlier this year that it was cutting about one-third of its work force.

A pioneering firm in California’s ill-fated competitive retail electricity market, Costa Mesa, CA-based Commerce Energy Group Inc., hired an investment banking unit with the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) earlier in September to assess the national energy retailer’s options for selling or partnering with another firm in the industry. A letter and subsequent financial filing by Commerce’s largest shareholder prompted the action.

A pioneering firm in California’s ill-fated competitive retail electricity market, Costa Mesa, CA-based Commerce Energy Group Inc. hired an investment banking unit with the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) earlier in September to assess the national energy retailer’s options for selling or partnering with another firm in the industry. A letter and subsequent financial filing by Commerce’s largest shareholder prompted the action.

For both regulators and legislators, California is awash in”unfinished business” in terms of getting its pioneering electricpower restructuring effort to result in robust competition, lowerprices and more significant choices for mass retail consumers,according to a variety of speakers at a two-day conferenceexamining the state’s 18-month-old experiment.

California’s pioneering Internet-based retail gas market, theEnergy Marketplace, expanded earlier this month to include some ofthe largest energy users in the state and is planning a furtherexpansion into electricity marketing later this year. The plan ofdeveloper Southern California Gas Co. and partners Pacific Gas andElectric Co. and San Diego Gas and Electric Co. is to ultimately gonational with a network of other utilities in the South andNortheast.