Questions

Questions about the impact on natural gas volumes/prices and legal challenges lingered as the applause faded and California energy stakeholders faced a multi-year implementation process for the state’s landmark global warming laws signed last week by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Pressure on already tight natural gas supplies and wholesale prices could result from the new law, according to the head of the Industrial Energy Consumers of America.

As the downfall of Amaranth Advisors LLC continues to produce more questions than answers, Robert McCullough, manager of McCullough Research, said Tuesday that he believes Amaranth trader Brian Hunter quite possibly attempted to corner the natural gas market and that the “lack of federal oversight” of energy markets and hedge funds by FERC, the CFTC and the SEC helped him almost accomplish his goal.

With more questions than answers surrounding Greenwich, CT-based Amaranth Advisors LLC’s significant losses due to a slumping natural gas market, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal reiterated Tuesday his long-standing call for more oversight of hedge funds in general.

The legal questions concerning the estate of Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay remain unanswered, but the court wranglings for and against ex-CEO Jeffrey Skilling and others involved in alleged misdeeds at the company continued last week in Houston.

The legal questions concerning the estate of Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay remain unanswered, but the court wranglings for and against ex-CEO Jeffrey Skilling and others involved in alleged misdeeds at the company continued this week in Houston.

Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) has quickly responded to a New York Times report that raised questions about whether the agency has been collecting sufficient royalties on natural gas produced from federal lands.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) wants the nation’s leading energy executives to appear at a joint Senate hearing to answer questions about why energy prices have gotten so far out of hand. As energy companies turned in record profits last week, Republicans and Democrats alike began dusting off proposals to impose taxes on the windfall profits.

In the wake of the New York Mercantile Exchange’s (Nymex) announcement that it will sell a 10% stake to General Atlantic for $135 million, questions surfaced about the future of open-outcry trading. The New York Post reported Thursday that exchange members are concerned that Goldman Sachs, which has ties to General Atlantic, would push electronic trading.

Exelon Chairman John Rowe expects a few market power questions in the regulatory review of Exelon’s proposed $12.5 billion stock-for-stock merger with Newark, NJ-based Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG), which was announced on Monday. He said the new company, Exelon Electric & Gas, which will be the largest U.S. combination utility, may have to divest some fossil-fuel and nuclear generation capacity on the PJM grid where it will have a dominant market presence.