Quickly

Susan Kennedy was quickly cleared by the Senate Rules Committee for confirmation as the new commissioner at the California Public Utilities Commission. Statewide consumer, utility and environmental groups appeared to support the appointment of the former Democratic Party and governor’s adviser. Confirmation by the full Senate is expected later this month. In part of her questioning, Kennedy said she was unhappy with the level of the so-called exit fees assigned late last year by the CPUC for direct access customers in California. At their current levels, she said it would take 10 to 20 years for bundled utility customers to get their fair share from the customers buying their own power supplies from third-party providers.

After noting that state regulators are in office to carry out the will of state lawmakers, Susan Kennedy was quickly cleared by the Senate Rules Committee last week for confirmation as the new commissioner at the California Public Utilities Commission.

A House lawmaker from Texas quickly withdrew a proposal Tuesday to put all natural gas pipelines in California under the jurisdiction of FERC after he came under a barrage of criticism from his colleagues.

CMS Energy Corp. and Southern Union Co. intend to respond as quickly as possible to a request from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regarding Southern Union’s pending acquisition of CMS’s Panhandle Eastern Pipe Line Co., according to a Form 8-K filed Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

After gapping higher at the opening bell and quickly filling in a gap from the daily bar chart, natural gas futures shifted lower Wednesday as traders positioned themselves ahead of what could be another bearish storage report this morning. Although the price direction was down most of the day Wednesday, the absence of strong selling allowed the market to escape the session with a modest gain. February finished at $5.161, up 3.4 cents for the day. Volume was moderate, with an estimated 86,303 contracts changing hands.

Raymond James analysts have an “unusually high degree of confidence” that domestic natural gas-driven stock prices will move up in an “unusually short period of time,” and now believe that there is a better than 75% probability that gas leveraged energy stocks will move up significantly in the next six to eight weeks.

Because of its maturity and growth, North America’s exploration and production (E&P) sector is less likely to respond as quickly as in the past when there were unsustainable commodity prices, and thus, the industry will trend toward less activity directed at short-term production maximization, according to analysts with RBC Capital Markets.

Because of its maturity and growth, North America’s exploration and production (E&P) sector is less likely to respond as quickly as in the past when there were unsustainable commodity prices, and thus, the industry will trend toward less activity directed at short-term production maximization, according to analysts with RBC Capital Markets.

Williams Cos. and Dynegy Corp. responded quickly to stories alleging certain activities that appeared last Wednesday in the Wall Street Journal, with spokesmen for both companies calling the two separate stories misleading. Williams reported it was not being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), noting that a review by the SEC of third quarter results of 2001 found the company did not have to make any financial adjustments. Dynegy, scrutinized for a transaction that was approved by two separate accounting firms, said the Journal had “unfairly mischaracterized the transaction and chose to question its intent.”