Stirs

Within hours of a formal announcement last Friday by BHP Billiton about a proposed offshore liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal 21 miles off the Southern California coast, residents and community activists in the nearest onshore population center at Oxnard, CA, were already protesting the proposal. Local environmentalists and elected officials defeated another LNG proposal from Occidental Petroleum Co. last year.

A bid by GPU to raise rates by approximately $316 million in Pennsylvania is quickly turning into a larger debate over whether the utility should be allowed to avoid electricity rate caps already in place in the state. As the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission prepares to consider GPU’s rate increase request later this week, the plan has received criticism from a number of fronts, including PUC Commissioner Nora Mead Brownell and Pennsylvania’s consumer advocate.

A bid by GPU to raise rates by approximately $316 million in Pennsylvania is quickly turning into a larger debate over whether the utility should be allowed to avoid electricity rate caps already in place in the state. As the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission prepares to consider GPU’s rate increase request later this week, the plan has received criticism from a number of fronts, including PUC Commissioner Nora Mead Brownell and Pennsylvania’s consumer advocate.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) is preparing legislation that wouldcall for a price cap to be imposed on wholesale electricitytransactions in the western region during emergency situations, anaide to the senator said.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) is preparing legislation that wouldcall for a price cap to be imposed on wholesale electricitytransactions in the western region during emergency situations, anaide to the senator said.

Usually when sources refer to “following the screen,” it meansfutures trading influencing cash prices up or down in the samedirection. Thursday it was a case of cash following the screennowhere. Lack of movement in Nymex’s September contract wasreplicated by general flatness for physical gas.