Ruling

Now that winter is over, most experts would have trouble ruling out the possibility of a test of market lows. But that clearly wasn’t happening in the cash market on Monday. Despite mild weather, high line pack on many pipes and weaker crude oil fundamentals, most points were up a nickle to as much as 15 cents.

Aboriginal politics, formerly a lethal snare in northern Canada, will not be allowed to trip up the Mackenzie Gas Project, a ruling by the National Energy Board has confirmed.

FERC should clarify a recent order in which it ordered Enron to forfeit $32.5 million in unjust profits by confirming that it didn’t intend to exclude from the scope of the proceeding Enron contracts that were executed from Jan. 16, 1997 to June 25, 2003 and under which Enron “continues to demand, but has not yet collected, unjust profits in the form of termination payments,” a collection of western-based electric utilities, state attorney generals and utility regulators said on Wednesday.

Canada’s arctic gas production and pipeline consortium won a battle last week to stay on schedule by limiting environmental reviews of the C$5-billion (US$3.7-billion) pipeline project. Authorities in Ottawa and the Northwest Territories turned down demands by conservationists to include an analysis of broad environmental effects of the project’s development.

Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services said the ratings and outlook on Union Gas (BBB/Stable) remain unchanged despite the adverse affects of a 2004 rate cut Thursday by the Ontario Energy Board (OEB).

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has vacated a district court ruling and unanimously agreed that pipeline owners — and not the Port of Houston Authority (PHA) — must pay to relocate oil, gas and products pipelines that cross the Houston Ship Channel.

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has vacated a district court ruling and unanimously agreed that pipeline owners — and not the Port of Houston Authority (PHA) — must pay to relocate oil, gas and products pipelines that cross the Houston Ship Channel.

Bitter rivals IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) and the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) had a public spat last week over a judge’s decision in their legal dispute over ICE’s use of Nymex settlement prices in ICE over-the-counter (OTC) contracts.

Refusing to go down without a fight, Salt Lake City-based Questar Corp. said it will pursue available legal and regulatory alternatives in response to a Utah Supreme Court decision on Aug. 1, which rejected the recovery of certain natural gas-processing costs incurred by its retail natural gas distribution subsidiary Questar Gas Co.