Promised

Energen CEO Mike Warren promised $1 billion in exploration and production (E&P) asset purchases over the next four years after high commodity prices helped the Alabama utility company cash in during the quarter ended March 31 on its recent E&P growth.

Energen CEO Mike Warren promised $1 billion in exploration and production (E&P) asset purchases over the next four years after high commodity prices helped the Alabama utility company cash in during the quarter ended March 31 on its recent E&P growth.

A new cold front moving across the Midwest Friday promised to bring lower weekend temperatures to that region and to the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast after crossing the Appalachians. Yet the demand-boosting forecast proved no match in counteracting the negative influences of further screen softness and the lingering effect of Thursday’s report of a 100 Bcf build in storage a week earlier.

Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) promised a fellow lawmaker last week that he would work to tackle the issue of creating transparency in natural gas price reporting beyond simply calling for a study in pending energy legislation when the bill reaches the Energy and Commerce Committee in the House of Representatives.

Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) promised a fellow lawmaker on Wednesday that he would work to tackle the issue of creating transparency in natural gas price reporting beyond simply calling for a study in pending energy legislation when the bill reaches the Energy and Commerce Committee in the House of Representatives.

The always interesting Pacific Northwest promised in the opening days of February to get even more interesting from a hydroelectric energy standpoint with a near-term “dumping” of cheap hydro supplies only to be followed by well-below-normal water runoffs in the spring, all of which adds up to the potential for higher wholesale power prices, exports and natural gas demand in the region, according to Boston-based consultant Energy Security Analysts Inc. (ESAI). The Western Energy Coordinating Council (WECC) flagged the ESAI analysis in its latest “market watch report.”

Having characterized the nation’s major energy firms as “failing miserably” to deliver promised increased cash flows from merchant energy businesses, most of the private-sector energy companies were blistered last Thursday by critical Standard & Poor’s analysts who conducted a conference call on the global utilities/energy merchant sector. The same firms with aggressive diversification plans five years ago, today for the most part, are “desperately trying to unwind” those businesses in response to a severe liquidity and capital crisis, triggered by the plunge in their stock prices, the analysts said.

Alaska’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has approved an expansion of the North Slope’s Point Thomson discovery area, which includes a firm commitment to drill in the prospect estimated to hold more than 8 Tcf of natural gas.

Calling the decision “profoundly disappointing,” Nova Scotia Premier John Hamm promised to defend his province’s position that it owns most of the Laurentian sub-basin, an undersea area south of the Grand Banks that may hold huge reserves of oil and natural gas. An arbitration panel rejected Nova Scotia’s contention that its marine boundary with Newfoundland was established 37 years ago.