Seven

Oil and natural gas “rust” is an “evil worse than depletion,” and in the next seven years, $50-100 trillion should be earmarked to rebuild the world’s aging infrastructure, according to energy guru Matthew R. Simmons.

While May natural gas futures dropped 9.4 cents Tuesday to close at $9.697, energy traders and analysts were more focused on the news that seven people were charged with illegal trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, some for their dealings in natural gas futures.

It’s going on seven years since the bankruptcy of a certain Houston-based energy trading giant, and natural gas marketers have remained true to their renewed faith in physical assets: pipelines and storage. But that’s not to say gas marketing is a sleepy business of merely pushing molecules through pipes and counting dollars.

It’s going on seven years since the bankruptcy of a certain Houston-based energy trading giant, and natural gas marketers have remained true to their renewed faith in physical assets: pipelines and storage. But that’s not to say gas marketing is a sleepy business of merely pushing molecules through pipes and counting dollars.

Superior Energy Services Inc. subsidiary Wild Well Control Inc. has signed contracts with subsidiaries of BP plc, Chevron Corp. and Apache Corp. to decommission seven downed platforms, associated wellbores and other related well facilities located offshore Louisiana for a fixed sum of $750 million.

With winter storms pounding a number of U.S. regions on Wednesday, natural gas futures in quiet trading recorded their first gain in seven sessions. The January contract traded in a $7.100 to $7.265 range before settling at $7.185, up three pennies from Tuesday’s close.

FERC Friday again gave failed hedge fund Amaranth Advisors LLC, seven affiliates and two former traders more time to respond to a July show-cause order that accused the parties of indirectly influencing the price of jurisdictional physical natural gas transactions in 2006 through manipulation of the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) gas futures contract.

Nearly seven years to the date of a major explosion on the El Paso Natural Gas pipeline system that killed 12 people in New Mexico, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Transportation (DOT) last Thursday announced a settlement that requires comprehensive reform of the natural gas pipeline’s entire 10,000-mile system and orders El Paso to pay a multi-million-dollar civil penalty.

Nearly seven years to the date of a major explosion on the El Paso Natural Gas pipeline system that killed 12 people in New Mexico, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Transportation (DOT) Thursday announced a settlement that requires comprehensive reform of the natural gas pipeline’s entire 10,000-mile system and orders El Paso to pay a multi-million-dollar civil penalty.