Replace

CMS Energy Corp. said Monday that Thomas J. Webb, former CFO for Kellogg Co., will replace CFO Alan M Wright, who has been with the company since 1991. At the same time CMS announced a definitive agreement to sell almost all of its remaining oil and gas reserves in the Permian Basin of West Texas, as well as assets in Africa and South America, to privately held Perenco SA and its affiliated companies, which are based in France.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA), which will replace the American Gas Association (AGA) as the purveyor of current gas storage data, will switch release times for weekly storage data from Wednesdays to Thursdays at 10:30 a.m. EST, beginning May 9.

Expected to replace the current program expiring at the end of June, Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton said last week that the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) is proposing to schedule 20 lease sales in eight outer continental shelf (OCS) planning areas in the Gulf of Mexico and offshore Alaska as part of a new five-year leasing program. The proposed sale areas are in the Gulf of Mexico’s western, central and parts of the eastern planning areas, as well as Alaska’s Beaufort Sea, Norton Basin, Cook Inlet/Shelikof Strait and the Chukchi Sea/Hope Basin.

Expected to replace the current program expiring at the end of June, Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton said Monday that the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) is proposing to schedule 20 lease sales in eight outer continental shelf (OCS) planning areas in the Gulf of Mexico and offshore Alaska as part of a new five-year leasing program. The proposed sale areas are in the Gulf of Mexico’s western, central and parts of the eastern planning areas, as well as Alaska’s Beaufort Sea, Norton Basin, Cook Inlet/Shelikof Strait and the Chukchi Sea/Hope Basin.

The BP-operated Pascagoula (MS) Plant has informed Destin Pipeline that a full plant shutdown will be required Tuesday to replace a leaking upstream valve. The processing outage will begin at 9 a.m. CST and is expected to last no more than 12 hours. The Destin gas stream is rich enough that it must be processed to meet quality specs of downstream pipes, a spokesman said, so Destin operators will have to shut in during the plant work. Current throughput is down to about 500 MMcf/d because of some producer maintenance, so the plant outage will affect about 250 MMcf that day. An earlier Destin bulletin board posting had said the plant work was set for Monday, but it was decided early Thursday afternoon to wait until Tuesday in an effort to accommodate producer interests, the spokesman said.

Thursday, it was deja vu all over again for both majors and independents reporting fourth quarter earnings. For the majors, Phillips Petroleum Co. and its merger partner Conoco both reported earnings declines for the final quarter of the year, while independent Houston Exploration Co. also saw earnings fall despite record production figures.

Natural gas reserves in Canada declined 2% last year to 59.7 Tcf, replacing only about 79% of 2000 production, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) said in its 50th annual estimate of Canada’s crude oil and natural gas reserves. CAPP said it was similar to the level of reserve replacement in 1999 and reflects a continued focus on shallow gas drilling. Canadian conventional crude oil reserve additions, including offshore Atlantic Canada, replaced 131% of 2000 production.

Natural gas reserves in Canada declined 2% last year to 59.7 Tcf, replacing only about 79% of 2000 production, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) said in its 50th annual estimate of Canada’s crude oil and natural gas reserves. CAPP said it was similar to the level of reserve replacement in 1999 and reflects a continued focus on shallow gas drilling. Canadian conventional crude oil reserve additions, including offshore Atlantic Canada, replaced 131% of 2000 production.

Panhandle Eastern said an outage at the Louisburg (KS) Station to replace a gate valve will begin at 8 a.m. CDT today and last about one day and eight hours. The KN Pony Express point will be shut in during the work, affecting 75,000 Dth/d.