Sector

Record crude oil prices, continuing domestic supply concerns, rising demand from the power generation sector and limited industrial demand destruction were among the reasons UBS cited in raising its natural gas price forecast for the next couple years, as well as its “long-term equilibrium” price.

Record crude oil prices, continuing domestic supply concerns, rising demand from the power generation sector and limited industrial demand destruction were among the reasons UBS cited in raising its natural gas price forecast for the next couple years, as well as its “long-term equilibrium” price.

Asserting that the current landscape for merger-related activity in the utility sector is “kind of barren,” Dominion Resources Inc. CEO Thomas Capps on Friday denied rumors that the Virginia-based power company is in merger talks with another unnamed company.

Arizona regulators have urged the state’s private-sector utilities to pursue new and traditional approaches to upgrading the state’s natural gas pipeline infrastructure and storage, seeking to provide more diversity of both supplies and infrastructure. They outlined a gas framework as part of a policy statement released just before the holidays last month.

Arizona regulators have urged the state’s private-sector utilities to pursue new and traditional approaches to upgrading the state’s natural gas pipeline infrastructure and storage, seeking to provide more diversity of both supplies and infrastructure. They outlined a gas framework as part of a policy statement released just before the holidays last month.

Providing a microcosm of the regained luster in some energy utility stocks, California’s three major utilities are all ending 2003 at or near 52-week highs in their stock prices. That includes two of the nation’s largest utilities that have been in or near bankruptcy for the last two years following the 2000-2001 western energy crisis.

Shaped by the continued rapid growth of liquefied natural gas (LNG), the natural gas sector is poised for “tremendous” growth over the next 20 years, and sometime between 2020 and 2030 it will overtake oil as the world’s preferred fuel, the CEO of Shell Gas and Power said last week.

Shaped by the continued rapid growth of liquefied natural gas (LNG), the natural gas sector is poised for “tremendous” growth over the next 20 years, and sometime between 2020 and 2030 it will overtake oil as the world’s preferred fuel, the CEO of Shell Gas and Power said Wednesday.

A Houston jury on Monday began hearing the first case that rocked the merchant sector in the past two years, but it didn’t involve Enron Corp. The jury seated Monday will determine whether a former Dynegy Inc. executive, who pleaded innocent, committed fraud with two fellow executives, who already have pleaded guilty.