Pursuing

With the economic viability of added underground natural gas storage in California already verified by utility and merchant developers currently pursuing proposals, state regulators later in October will hold a one-day hearing on a unique, urban-based storage project in the heart of the state capital, Sacramento. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) will use the public input as part of its ongoing review and environmental assessment.

With the economic viability of added underground natural gas storage in California already verified by utility and merchant developers currently pursuing proposals, state regulators later in October will hold a one-day hearing on a unique, urban-based storage project in the heart of the state capital, Sacramento. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) will use the public input as part of its ongoing review and environmental assessment.

President Bush Tuesday dismissed Democrats’ claims that domestic producers are not actively pursuing their oil and natural gas leases and that excessive speculation is responsible for escalating crude oil prices.

Nicor Gas is pursuing a rate hike at the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) that would raise about $140 million annually from business and residential customers. The company also is proposing a decoupling mechanism to preserve revenue in the face of declining gas consumption.

About 43% of respondents to an informal electronic poll of attendees at one independent producers session at the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston Wednesday found that they expect commodity prices to stay roughly the same for the next three to five years. However, 38% of the respondents think that oil prices will drop back to $40-60/bbl soon.

Costs for U.S.-based exploration and production (E&P) companies are expected to remain high this year, but as a whole most of them are again pursuing aggressive capital programs in 2007, Standard & Poor’s RatingsDirect said in a report. Many E&Ps, including Occidental Petroleum Corp., Devon Energy Corp, XTO Energy Inc. and EOG Resources Inc., have upped capital spending by 10-20% year-over-year, with only a few, including Anadarko Petroleum Corp., expected to focus on debt reduction.

While it is pursuing a reduced carbon power generation portfolio that includes a bold nuclear power plant play, Princeton, NJ-based NRG Energy, Inc.’s aggressive 10,000 MW, $15.9 billion long-term development plan is weighted toward an expectation that most of its new megawatts will come from natural gas- and clean coal-fired generation with a healthy dose of wind, according to a presentation Tuesday by CEO David Crane at NRG’s first day-long conference for financial analysts.

In a significant victory for federal prosecutors who are pursuing other high-profile fraud cases post-Enron, a Houston jury late Thursday convicted former Dynegy Inc. executive Jamie Olis, 37, on six counts of fraud.

A top official with Virginia-based Dominion told a gathering of financial professionals last Tuesday that the energy company is “not interested” in pursuing a merger. Meanwhile, Michael Morris, CEO of American Electric Power (AEP), told the same conference that AEP is “not excited” about merger and acquisition (M&A) activities.