Strategies

The dominant pipeline market in natural gas will always be regional, but companies’ strategic sights increasingly will be global, as the geographic dislocation of reserves to market is partly mitigated by new ways of linking stranded fields and customers, according to a report released on Wednesday by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC).

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) last Monday announced fundamental new management strategies, centering on batch processing and area-wide rules, aimed at speeding up its processing of applications for permits to drill oil and gas. The announcement came after the interior secretary told Congress the department would be discarding policies installed by the Clinton administration to expand wilderness areas.

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Monday announced fundamental new management strategies, centering on batch processing and area-wide rules, aimed at speeding up its processing of applications for permits to drill oil and gas. The announcement came after the interior secretary told Congress last week the department would be discarding policies installed by the Clinton administration to expand wilderness areas.

Energy trading companies should leap into action with “an aggressive compliance program in-house,” including a regimen of standards and procedures to weed out unacceptable market behavior, a veteran attorney in the regulatory arena told the mid-year meeting of the Energy Bar Association.

Energy trading companies should leap into action with “an aggressive compliance program in-house,” including a regimen of standards and procedures to weed out unacceptable market behavior, a veteran attorney in the regulatory arena told the mid-year meeting of the Energy Bar Association.

Illustrating two different energy business strategies, KinderMorgan Inc. (KMI) and The Williams Companies were on the oppositesides of a major tolling agreement last week. The deal covers 3,300MW of combined cycle peaking capacity Kinder Morgan is building inthe Midcontinent and in the Southeast regions of the United States.

Consistent with both companies’ strategies for the future, NRGEnergy Inc. announced it would pay $325 million to Wisconsin EnergyCorp. for two Connecticut coal-fired power stations. NRG said theacquisition would help it maintain and develop a “top-threeposition in the Northeast,” while Wisconsin Energy said it wouldfocus its energy projects in the Midwest.

In less than two years, the energy industry has been transformedfrom a traditional service industry into a real-time convergence ofinformation, work flows, e-business and knowledge, and thosecompanies that don’t keep pace to benefit from the new age willbecome victims, regardless of what they have to offer.

In less than two years, the energy industry has been transformedfrom a traditional service industry into a real-time convergence ofinformation, work flows, e-business and knowledge, and thosecompanies that don’t keep pace to benefit from the new age willbecome victims, regardless of what they have to offer.