Stresses

While the outlook was rosier than it has been in more than three years, some of the 200-300 PG&E Corp. shareholders attending the corporate annual meeting Wednesday in San Francisco tossed some verbal grenades at CEO Robert Glynn for the company’s $83 million bonus program last year for 17 of the top executives, including Glynn himself, who pocketed the single biggest bonus at $17 million.

While the outlook was rosier than it has been in more than three years, some of the 200-300 PG&E Corp. shareholders attending the corporate annual meeting Wednesday in San Francisco tossed some verbal grenades at CEO Robert Glynn for the company’s $83 million bonus program last year for 17 of the top executives, including Glynn himself, who pocketed the single biggest bonus at $17 million.

FERC last Monday asked Congress to approve a $210 million budget for the agency in fiscal year 2005 to help fund efforts to bolster the reliability of the electric transmission and natural gas pipeline networks.

FERC Monday asked Congress to approve a $210 million budget for the agency in fiscal year 2005 to help fund efforts to bolster the reliability of the electric transmission and natural gas pipeline networks.

As is already required of hazardous liquid pipelines, the Department of Transportation’s Office of Pipeline Safety (OPS) has enacted revised safety standards that call on natural gas transmission and distribution pipelines to use the same level of protection against atmospheric corrosion on their facilities despite the vintage.

A large crowd of regulators, industry officials, and natural gas consumers at the National Petroleum Council’s (NPC) emergency summit on natural gas supply on Thursday in Washington, DC, called for more natural gas conservation, increased energy efficiency measures and a greater focus on energy awareness prior to the next winter heating season. The Department of Energy (DOE) also announced plans for increased data collection and dissemination on the gas supply and demand situation. And state regulators announced that they would hold workshops across the nation with DOE, FERC and the NPC on natural gas supply, demand and prices.

Natural gas producers and pipeline developers stand warned to make community relations a priority if they advance, as planned this year, a proposal to connect Arctic supplies with a project traversing the native-dominated Mackenzie Valley.

Natural gas producers and pipeline developers stand warned to make community relations a priority if they advance, as planned this year, a proposal to connect Arctic supplies with a project traversing the native-dominated Mackenzie Valley.

Seeking some credit for helping resolve California’s wholesale energy price and supply crisis last year, Southern California Gas Co. said at year-end that it “did everything in its power” to increase access and availability of natural gas supplies in the state, marking its10th consecutive year of avoiding curtailments to its 5.1 million customers. Its affiliated utility in the Sempra Energy companies, San Diego Gas and Electric Co., however, did curtail some of its largest industrial customers, including two power plants, on two separate occasions last winter.