Prior

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia last week handed the energy industry a major victory by vacating and remanding an order that would require publicly traded producers to report to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) how much they pay foreign governments for the commercial development of oil, natural gas and minerals.

FERC has green lighted an agreement between the West’s largest grid operators to create a real-time energy imbalance market (EIM) that promises substantial efficiencies and cost savings on the overall grid, and which could have lasting impacts on the region’s natural gas demand.

A FERC administrative law judge (ALJ) initial decision issued last week has found that the fuel tracking provisions for Rockies Express Pipeline LLC (REX) are not just and reasonable, recommended refunds to shippers of $22.2 million, and endorsed an alternative to the existing tracker, which was found to be overly complex and almost impossible to monitor.

Some time ago, the North American shale gas surprise gathered enough momentum to turn liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers bound for the United States around, sparking a frenzy to construct liquefaction and export capacity on U.S. and Canadian shores. A “big flood” of LNG is on its way in the next several years, an industry veteran told NGI.

Alberta natural gas royalties, a health benchmark of the Canadian supply industry, plunged to their lowest level in a generation in the government fiscal year that ended March 31.

Move over Florida Gas Transmission (FGT), Southern Natural Gas, Gulfstream Natural Gas System LLC and Cypress Pipeline because Spectra Energy Corp. wants to build a 465-mile interstate natural gas pipeline into the Sunshine State.

Commodity Futures Trading Commissioner Jill Sommers, one of two Republicans at the agency, said she will leave on Monday (July 8), one and a half years before her term is due to end in October 2014. Her resignation does not come as a surprise as she informed President Obama in January that she planned to leave (see NGI, Jan. 28). Asked where she intended to go after the CFTC, Sommers told NGI, “I don’t know. I have not started looking for my next opportunity yet.” Before leaving the agency, she pledged to carry out the investigation into MF Global Holdings Ltd. and former CEO Jon Corzine, a former U.S. senator and New Jersey governor; and an assistant treasurer for illegal use of customer money. The CFTC recently filed a proposed order against MF Global and Corzine, which is the subject of review by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Because CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler had ties to MF Global and Corzine, Sommers was picked to lead the investigation into the company’s collapse, which took with it an estimated $1.2 billion in customer funds (see NGI, Nov. 14, 2011). Sommers has been on the Commission as it worked on Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act. She was first sworn in as Commissioner in August 2007 for a term that expired in April 2009 then renominated by Obama to serve a second term. Some CFTC observers consider Christopher Giancarlo, executive vice president of the brokerage firm GFI Group Inc., a likely candidate to replace Sommers. “It’s not a fact, so we’re not going to comment,” said a GFI spokeswoman of the rumors, which she said had been circulating for a few weeks. Giancarlo is no stranger to Capitol Hill. He has testified several times about the challenges of implementing Dodd-Frank.

Former FBI Director Louis Freeh was appointed last week as a special master to investigate apparent misconduct by one of the lawyers who helped manage BP plc’s $7.8 billion settlement fund with Gulf Coast plaintiffs over the deepwater Macondo well blowout in April 2010.

Chesapeake Energy Corp., the mega-operator that Aubrey McClendon built shale-by-shale, is being repurposed brick-by-brick as the company transitions from risky exploration to steady production.