Speakers

Natural gas is winning the battle to become America’s fuel for now and the future thanks to energy industry ingenuity, speakers at a Houston pipeline conference said Wednesday. However, one said the industry should now be confident in taking more of a leadership roll in shaping the country’s energy future.

Natural gas faces some road hazards on the way to becoming a leading alternative transportation fuel, suggested speakers at a forum Wednesday in Washington, DC.

All the indicators are that the natural gas industry is headed into a huge oversupply, fueled by flat demand and continued gigantic growth in shale gas. Speakers touched on a developing supply bubble in different ways during the opening day Tuesday of the “LDC Forum: Rockies and the West” conference in Los Angeles, noting that it will require some creative marketing to pump up demand.

Despite a dearth of hurricane activity in 2006, speakers on a storm preparedness panel at the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston last week still had plenty to talk about. After all, the industry remains on the mend from the momentous 2005 hurricane season and digesting the lessons learned from the one-two punch of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Despite a dearth of hurricane activity in 2006, speakers on a storm preparedness panel at the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston Tuesday still had plenty to talk about. After all, the industry remains on the mend from the momentous 2005 hurricane season and digesting the lessons learned from the one-two punch of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Information technology is transforming just about every aspectof the energy industry, even the Federal Energy RegulatoryCommission, speakers at an INGAA Foundation conference in Houstonnoted Thursday. Oliver G. “Rick” Richard, CEO of Columbia EnergyGroup, said soon “time margin” will become nearly as critical ayardstick as profit margin for measuring company performance.