Rigging

Former Chesapeake Energy Corp. CEO Aubrey McClendon, 56, who founded American Energy Partners LP in 2013, was killed in a car wreck Wednesday, according to Oklahoma authorities.

A Michigan landowner has filed a lawsuit alleging that Chesapeake Energy Corp., Encana Corp. and a state-based operator conspired to rig a state oil and gas leasehold auction in 2010.

A Tulsa, OK-based pipeline construction firm has been fined $150,000 for rigging the bids they submitted to BP America Production Co. for the construction of natural gas pipelines in the Upper San Juan Basin in Colorado.

In light of the “national importance” and “precedent-setting character” of the pending bid-rigging and price-manipulation complaint against El Paso Natural Gas, California regulators and the state’s three principal utilities have asked that they be given a chance to make a pitch for their case before the full FERC.

In light of the “national importance” and “precedent-setting character” of the pending bid-rigging and price-manipulation complaint against El Paso Natural Gas, California regulators and the state’s three principal utilities have asked that they be given a chance to make a pitch for their case before the full FERC.

El Paso Natural Gas is trying to head off an attempt by Chief Administrative Law Judge Curtis L. Wagner Jr. to expand the scope of a four-week-old FERC hearing, which has been confined to market-power issues so far, to include the previously-litigated allegations that the pipeline rigged bidding for transportation capacity on its system to favor its merchant-power generation affiliates.

El Paso Natural Gas is trying to head off an attempt by Chief Administrative Law Judge Curtis L. Wagner Jr. to expand the scope of a four-week-old FERC hearing — which has been limited to market-power issues so far — to include the previously-litigated allegations that the pipeline rigged bidding for transportation capacity on its system to favor its merchant-power affiliates.

FERC last week cleared El Paso Natural Gas of charges that it rigged the bidding for capacity on its system during an open season in February 2000 to favor its affiliates El Paso Merchant Energy Gas L.P. and El Paso Merchant Energy Co., but allegations that the El Paso companies engaged in market and price manipulation weren’t as readily dismissed.

FERC yesterday cleared El Paso Natural Gas of charges that itrigged the bidding for capacity on its system during an open seasonin February 2000 to favor its affiliates El Paso Merchant EnergyGas L.P. and El Paso Merchant Energy Co. The charges arose when thetwo affiliates ended up the big winners, snaring contracts for 1.22Bcf of firm capacity to the California border – about one-third ofthe capacity on the pipeline.