Rejected

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Wednesday rejected requests to reschedule oral arguments in the high-profile complaint case pitting the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) against El Paso Corp.

FERC last Thursday rejected an effort by California Attorney General Bill Lockyer to squeeze billions of dollars of refunds from power sellers into the state’s energy markets, disagreeing with the argument put forward by Lockyer that the Commission’s regulatory regime governing market-based rates violates the Federal Power Act (FPA) requirement that rates must be on file.

Just when it was expecting to see the light at the end of a long tunnel, Millennium Pipeline suffered another setback last week. Although it was able to come to an agreement with the city of Mount Vernon, NY, over a key routing issue, setting the stage for a final green light from FERC after five years of review, pipeline officials ran into trouble pushing the New York State Department’s (DOS) Division of Coastal Resources for a final decision on its route through sensitive Haverstraw Bay on the Hudson River.

FERC last Wednesday rejected assertions made by a collection of generators that Entergy Corp. has effectively hindered wholesale competition by preventing independent power producers (IPPs) from being able to self-supply their imbalance requirements in a fashion similar to what Entergy does for its own generation resources.

In an unexpected twist, the SEC on Friday asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York to reject Enron Corp.’s hiring of Stephen F. Cooper as CEO, calling the terms of his million dollar contract and bonus guarantee inappropriate. Enron wants court approval to hire the bankruptcy specialist as an independent contractor, with the title of interim CEO and chief restructuring officer, at an annual salary of $1.32 million a year and a bonus of at least $5 million once the restructuring is completed.

A Calgary judge on Thursday rejected a bid by Enron Canada, a unit of Enron Corp., for a court order to prevent contract cancellations by Canadian marketers and producers. The move effectively will push Enron Canada into insolvency and bankruptcy is expected.

Calgary-based Berkley Petroleum Corp. unanimously rejected the takeover bid last week by a Hunt Oil Co. subsidiary, which offered to purchase all of the common shares of the company for $10 per share. Analysts were meanwhile speculating that without a white knight, Berkley might be worth more if it’s broken up and sold.

FERC has rejected a complaint that called for the New YorkIndependent System Operator (NYISO) to change its market rules andsoftware by Aug. 1 to permit bidding by non-physical entities(power marketers) in the electric market there.

Northwest resumed accepting physical receipts Tuesday from the ClayBasin storage facility after having rejected them for Monday’s gasday. In a late Friday afternoon bulletin board posting, the pipelinesaid that due to an “inordinate amount” of liquid hydrocarbons stillbeing received from the Questar Pipeline-operated facility (see DailyGPI, Feb. 14), Northwest’s ability tomeet obigations for deliveries to downstream pipeline interconnects ormarkets was in jeopardy. Although no physical Clay Basin receipts wereallowed Monday, Questar and Pipeline agreed to limit non-physicalnominations to 80,000 Dth/d until further notice “subject toavailability of offsetting physical balancing receipts at anotherlocation” south of the Kemmerer (WY) Station. On Monday Northwestfield operation crews were able to complete removal of the condensateliquids that had built up at the Green River (WY), where afilter/separator previously was being overwhelmed by the liquids. Thatallowed Tuesday’s resumption of physical receipts, Northwest said, butshould liquids again start accumulating at unacceptable levels, itwill shut in Clay Basin receipts on 24 hours’ notice. Unlike what wasreported in the Feb. 14 Daily GPI, this time the notice could beissued on a weekend, Northwest said.