Seven

Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line said it has put an additional 51,000 Dth/d of firm capacity into service in the Northeast with a seven-mile pipeline expansion in Burlington and Mercer counties, NJ.

Ending a seven-session price advance, natural gas futures dropped lower at the opening bell Monday as traders alleviated overbought conditions and cashed in on a portion of recent gains. After that initial wave of weakness, however, the market steadied itself, giving buyers the opportunity to chip away at the deficit for the remainder of the day.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) last week said he removed his seven-month “hold” on the nomination of Joseph T. Kelliher for a seat on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) said Tuesday he has removed his seven-month “hold” on the nomination of Joseph T. Kelliher for a seat on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Southern Company GAS and Accenture have signed a seven-year business process outsourcing agreement under which Accenture will provide customer care and revenue cycle activities, including billing, contract management and collections, to the Atlanta-based company. The agreement, which is worth an estimated $80 million, is designed to improve the quality and lower the cost of the customer care and billing services that the Southern Co. subsidiary provides to its more than 200,000 natural gas customers. The services covered under the agreement include call center, billing, correspondence management, transaction management, revenue management, collections and exception processing operations. Accenture will provide the services through Accenture Business Services for Utilities, a subsidiary that provides back office management services to the utilities industry across North America. Accenture also will provide all customer care-related information technology (IT) services and key marketing services, such as outbound and inbound customer acquisition processing. Southern Company GAS will retain ownership of all customer-related data and the underlying IT systems and expects its current management team to continue to play an active role with operations.

Natural gas futures plumbed new seven-week lows Thursday following the news that a stunning 127 Bcf was injected into underground storage facilities last week. Within five minutes of the 10:30 a.m. EDT report, the July contract free-fell 20 cents to $5.42. It moved lower and sideways for the rest of the session until a round of market-on-close selling put the nail in the coffin. July went off the board at $5.291, down 46.6 cents for the session and 65.4 cents below the June contract’s final resting place of $5.945.

The Gas Research Institute (GRI) filed its last annual budget request with FERC on Monday in what has been a seven-year transition period from a regulatory funded organization, which was financially supported through gas pipeline surcharges, to a privately funded organization that is part of the Gas Technology Institute, an industry research and consulting firm.

NRG Energy Inc. last week said that it has reached a settlement with all seven former executives who filed an involuntary Chapter 11 petition against NRG late in 2002. The Xcel Energy subsidiary will ask the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Minnesota to approve the settlement and dismiss the petition.

Kerr-McGee Corp. has set aside more than half of its $860 million capital budget this year for exploration and development projects on- and offshore the United States, with $385 million earmarked for Gulf of Mexico deepwater projects and another $200 million for onshore.