Study

While geologists, engineers and regulators continue to study how much more there can be, producers and exporters are showing that western Canadian natural gas supplies are still growing.

The Iowa Utilities Board has begun an emergency investigation tostudy the adequacy of payment options available to natural gascustomers following the record-high energy bills this winter. Theboard is holding a workshop today in Des Moines, and has invitedall regulated natural gas utilities serving the state toparticipate.

Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) yesterday called on FERC to conduct astudy into why there is such a huge differential between prices fornatural gas in the supply basin and prices for the gas delivered tothe Southern California border.

The state-chartered, nonprofit California wholesale spot powermarket (Cal-PX) concluded this week that the state’s market isflawed but has not been gamed. The power exchange intends to makeits results public Nov. 1 in a filing to the Federal EnergyRegulatory Commission, a Cal-PX spokesperson said Tuesday.

The state-chartered, nonprofit California wholesale spot powermarket (Cal-PX) concluded this week that the state’s market isflawed but has not been gamed. The power exchange intends to makeits results public Nov. 1 in a filing to the Federal EnergyRegulatory Commission, a Cal-PX spokesperson said Tuesday.

A new study by the INGAA Foundation on gas infrastructurerequirements warns that the government’s current environmentalgoals may not be reached if regulators and legislators don’t startmaking more of an effort to ensure the required gas infrastructurecan be built to serve a 30 Tcf market by 2010.

A new study of seven cities done by the Interstate Natural GasAssociation of America (INGAA) Foundation found that Chicago, andAustin, TX, reflected “desirable attributes of a metropolitan area”that could likely benefit from a high deployment of distributedgeneration.

Interstate pipelines will want to be on the look-out for a majorstudy that will review the potential of the New England pipelineinfrastructure to supply the “enormous” increase in the demand fornatural gas by power generators in the region.

The Minerals Management Service (MMS) released results of astudy evaluating the role of the federal Outer Continental Shelf(OCS) in supplying future U.S. gas demand. Results were presentedat an industry symposium held in Houston yesterday.