Stop

While its U.S. and Canadian natural gas production declined somewhat, that didn’t stop Exxon Mobil Corp. from posting its greatest first quarter profit ever and the fifth greatest quarterly profit of any public company ever.

Few people in the gas industry realize it, but Pinedale, WY, a tiny town with one flashing red stop light, soon could become the center of the domestic natural gas universe, said Stuart Nance, director of oil and gas marketing for Ultra Petroleum.

Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal said the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) should put a stop to leasing land in the Bridger-Teton national forest for oil and gas exploration and production until existing appeals of a lease sale that was held in December are resolved. Freudenthal has asked BLM to postpone an April 4 lease sale that will offer up 19,000 acres of Bridger-Teton land.

The announced resignation of Interior Secretary Gale Norton has given opponents of drilling off Florida’s coastline added impetus to stop the Bush administration’s proposal to open up more of the eastern Gulf of Mexico to oil and natural gas leasing, said offshore drilling foe Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) on Monday.

Aboriginal and environmental dissenters have been served their clearest notice yet that they will not be allowed to stop the Mackenzie Gas Project if it presents a viable case. The Canadian government has the final say on projects and can trump recommendations of the Mackenzie project Joint Review Panel set up with federal, Aboriginal and provincial representatives, according to the latest federal pronouncement, backed by court decisions.

The lack of adequate transmission infrastructure and a policy environment that has a stop-and-start quality to it, including the federal wind power production tax credit (PTC) that was recently extended through December 2005, are key hurdles to the further development of wind power in the U.S., participants at a FERC-sponsored technical conference said last week.

After making a pit-stop on Wednesday, December natural gas futures continued to trend lower again on Thursday. December natural gas futures hit a low of $7.13 before crawling back up to settle at $7.236, down 44.2 cents from Wednesday’s settle.

After making a pit-stop on Wednesday, December natural gas futures continued to trend lower again on Thursday. December natural gas futures hit a low of $7.13 before crawling back up to settle at $7.236, down 44.2 cents from Wednesday’s settle.

Nevada Power Co. last Wednesday filed a federal lawsuit against Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA), several officials with the Colorado River Commission (CRC) and a former Enron Corp. trader in which Nevada Power alleges that the defendants manipulated western power markets in 2000-2001 at the expense of the Nevada-based electric utility.