Quality

Ameren and Nicor Gas have signed 20 year contracts to purchase pipeline quality synthetic natural gas starting in 2010 from a coal gasification plant to be built by Power Holdings LLC in Southern Illinois.

Ameren and Nicor Gas have signed 20 year contracts to purchase pipeline quality synthetic natural gas starting in 2010 from a coal gasification plant to be built by Power Holdings LLC in Southern Illinois.

Kerr-McGee Corp. on Wednesday announced a “quality oil pay” discovery in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico at the 4,500-foot-deep Caesar prospect in the Green Canyon block 683, less than a week after announcing a natural gas discovery in its deepwater Claymore prospect (see Daily GPI, May 9). The Caesar No. 1 well was drilled to a total depth of 29,721 feet.

Brazil’s state oil company Petroleo Brasileiro (Petrobras) announced Tuesday it had found “high quality” gas reserves in a Garden Banks 244 Block well, operated by its subsidiary Petrobras America in the deep water Gulf Of Mexico.

Despite a 30% increase in gas-directed drilling in the United States over the last two years, quarterly production statistics from public financial reports show domestic production is still declining, analysts at Raymond James & Associates and UBS said this week. Both found second quarter domestic gas production down 1.2% from levels at the end of the second quarter of 2004 based on separate E&P surveys.

The lack of adequate transmission infrastructure and a policy environment that has a stop-and-start quality to it, including the federal wind power production tax credit (PTC) that was recently extended through December 2005, are key hurdles to the further development of wind power in the U.S., participants at a FERC-sponsored technical conference said last week.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. told regional water quality officials in Southern California that the utility will begin early this month installing a larger pump to draw chromium 6-tainted groundwater out of the desert floor around the Colorado River at the California-Arizona border, preventing it from reaching the river waters, which are a major source of drinking water in the southern end of California.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. told regional water quality officials in Southern California that the utility will begin early this month installing a larger pump to draw chromium 6-tainted groundwater out of the desert floor around the Colorado River at the California-Arizona border, preventing it from reaching the river waters, which are a major source of drinking water in the southern end of California.

The Oil & Gas Asset Clearinghouse announced that it will hold its next Hybrid Live Floor/Internet Auction offering 980 quality oil and gas properties combined into 143 Lots at the Sheraton North Houston Hotel in Houston, TX on March 10. The full-service marketing and consulting firm for oil and gas property acquisitions and divestitures uses a hybrid auction process that allows Internet bidders to compete in real-time against the live floor bidders. The company said properties in this offering are located in Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas and Wyoming. Some of the sellers include ExxonMobil, Range Resources, Britnic Oil & Gas, Premier Energy, Raven Resources, PXP, Ward Petroleum, Tulsa Energy Partners and several others. Properties can be previewed online through Data Room Explorer on The Clearinghouse Web site www.ogclearinghouse.com. Data rooms are open through March 5.