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In an election year move that is sure to stimulate commentary among political observers, California Gov. Gray Davis late Tuesday named a former utility executive and more recently an entrepreneur in the energy services business, Michael R. Peevey, to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), effective Saturday (March 9).

In an election year move that is sure to stimulate commentary among political observers, California Gov. Gray Davis late Tuesday named a former utility executive and more recently an entrepreneur in the energy services business, Michael R. Peevey, to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), effective Saturday (March 9). Peevey will fill out the rest of the term of Richard Bilas who announced last week he was resigning at the end of the business day Friday. Bilas stuck around this week for a major vote the CPUC has scheduled for today on the regulators’ earlier suspension of direct access, retail customer choice.

By this summer, at least two more energy trading companies — more likely asset-light instead of asset-heavy — may be forced to file for bankruptcy, which will offer opportunities for other companies, and perhaps even an opening for new trading players, a panel of energy executives forecast last Tuesday. Speaking at the UBS Warburg Global Energy & Utilities Conference in New York City, the panel agreed that companies most likely to succeed will be the multi-dimensional players, with balanced portfolios that operate in both high or low volatility markets.

Dynegy CEO Chuck Watson told the investment community Monday that he was “90% sure” that the risk/reward ratio in the planned merger with Enron Corp. made it “clearly worth doing the deal,” because the issues that decimated the former market leader were with its non-core businesses. Explaining that his team had “adequately bracketed the downside,” as the deal fell together over the past few weeks, Watson said he could not be “99% positive,” but noted that the upside was “substantial,” and said he had a “good deal of confidence…that we’ll be absolutely fine here.”

Is the market in early meltdown stage? At least one traderthought so, saying, “Yep, it sure looks that way” after the screentacked on a second straight day of double-digit losses Wednesdayand was joined by the cash market recording price drops rangingbetween a dime and a little more than 20 cents.

It sure didn’t take long for the August aftermarket to jump wellabove indexes, one market observer said. Boosted by screen strengthand the anticipation of closer to normal summer weather eventuallyinvading key northern market areas, all points except Malinregistered double-digit gains Wednesday.

Record low rig counts are a sure sign of an energy industry incrisis, according to the Independent Petroleum Association ofAmerica (IPAA). The Baker Hughes rotary rig count dated Jan. 22 forNorth America was at 942, a steep drop from the count one year agoof 1,508.

Canadians are wasting no time making sure production capacitykeeps up with increases in demand for natural gas that pipelineprojects are expected to generate over the next two years,according to an annual deliverability survey released last week bythe Canadian Energy Research Institute. Not even this year’s 30%drop in oil prices hurt producer revenues and budgets enough toslow down gas development.

Canadians are wasting no time making sure production capacitykeeps up with increases in demand for natural gas that pipelineprojects are expected to generate over the next two years,according to an annual deliverability survey released last week bythe Canadian Energy Research Institute. Not even this year’s 30%drop in oil prices hurt producer revenues and budgets enough toslow down gas development.