Senior

TSX Group Inc., the parent company of the Toronto Stock Exchange and TSX Venture Exchange, Canada’s two national exchanges serving the senior equity and public venture equity markets, said Tuesday that it will purchase 100% of NGX Canada Inc., which operates a large natural gas and electricity trading and clearing exchange, for C$38 million. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter and is subject to regulatory approvals.

After solidly predicting the Arctic cold front that has frozen New England (see NGI, Jan. 12), Joe Bastardi, senior meteorologist for AccuWeather.com, said last week that the region is not out of the woods yet.

As the new year has brought steep mercury drops in many areas of the U.S., Joe Bastardi, senior expert meteorologist for AccuWeather.com, said it is almost certain that for many people it’s going to be the coldest 20-day period experienced since the winter of 1996.

Imperial Oil Senior Vice President K.C. Williams said last week that a strong response to a preliminary auction of transportation service on the proposed Mackenzie Valley pipeline has prompted the sponsors to increase the size of the pipeline. The proposal now calls for an initial 1.2 Bcf/d on a 30″ line being designed to have built-in capacity for raising deliveries to 1.9 Bcf/d with additional compression.

White House senior advisor Karl Rove recently brokered a deal with Senate Democrats in which he assured them sitting FERC Commissioner William Massey would be re-nominated by the Bush administration for a third term, a knowledgeable source said Monday.

White House senior advisor Karl Rove last week brokered a deal with Senate Democrats in which he assured them sitting FERC Commissioner William Massey would be re-nominated by the Bush administration for a third term, a knowledgeable source said Monday.

Doing about what its senior executives said they expected, San Francisco-based PG&E Corp. Tuesday reported consolidated earnings that were in line with the second quarter last year, although consolidated utility results were down sharply. Also as expected, PG&E’s merchant energy unit, PG&E National Energy Group (NEG), which last month filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, reported a loss for the quarter, albeit a smaller one than its loss in the second quarter of 2002.

Williams Tuesday named Donald R. Chappel as senior vice president and chief financial officer. “Don Chappel brings considerable, relevant experience to Williams as we continue to strengthen our finances and refine our focus on integrated natural gas businesses,” said Steve Malcolm, chairman and CEO. Chappel, 51, most recently founded and served as chief executive officer of a development business in Chicago. His previous experience includes serving twice in the late 1990s as CFO of Waste Management, Inc. during periods before and after its 1998 merger with USA Waste Services. On those occasions, a board-led management team comprised of a former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, a fund manager/shareholder activist, and a financial-turnaround specialist recruited Chappel as CFO. In that role, Chappel is credited with successfully leading the company’s financial-recovery efforts and building a solid foundation for the future. Prior to Waste Management, Chappel served in financial leadership roles at Beatrice Companies and a major public accounting firm. He earned his bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Illinois in Chicago.

Old Man Winter is showing signs of surprising longevity for an aging senior citizen. The cold and sometimes snowy weather that had been around earlier in the week in the Rockies was leaving that region Friday but was showing up or expected in much of the East.