Switches

Softer natural gas prices are eroding Canadian well numbers, but western drilling rigs are staying busy as the industry switches to targets requiring more work including deep supplies to bank for future use.

The Georgia Public Service Commission slapped Centrica’s U.S. retail gas marketing subsidiary, Energy America, with a $413,800 fine, potentially much greater, for slamming customers in the state retail customer choice program. It’s the largest fine ever handed down against a Georgia natural gas marketer, but it’s the fourth fine, or “assessment” — as the Georgia regulators like to call it — this year against a retail marketer.

The Georgia Public Service Commission slapped Centrica’s U.S. retail gas marketing subsidiary, Energy America, with a $413,800 fine, potentially much greater, for slamming customers in the state retail customer choice program. It’s the largest fine ever handed down against a Georgia natural gas marketer, but it’s the fourth fine, or “assessment” — as the Georgia regulators like to call it — this year against a retail marketer.

Continuing his nonstop photo opportunities to flip the switches on new electric generation sources, Gov. Gray Davis Monday opened the 90 MW Larkspur Energy Project, built by InterGen and billed as the largest natural gas-fired power plant to come on-line in San Diego in more than 40 years. InterGen also signed an 11-year contract with the state for the plant’s output.

Illinois Power, now a subsidiary of leading marketer DynegyCorp., is changing its game plan, telling regulators it wants todrop out of the more conservative Midwest Independent SystemOperator (MISO) to join the Alliance Regional Transmission Operator(Alliance RTO).