Taxes

Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski has put a revamp of the state’s oil and gas production taxes back on the plate of lawmakers, currently in special session to consider a fiscal contract with a trio of major producers for the development of the Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline.

Residual impacts from last year’s Gulf of Mexico hurricanes, higher taxes and a prolonged Texas refinery shutdown sent BP plc’s 1Q2006 net profit down 15% from a year ago, despite higher commodity prices. The London-based major posted a net profit of $5.63 billion, compared with $6.602 billion in 1Q2005.

EnCana closed its $2 billion sale of Gulf of Mexico assets to Statoil, netting $1.45 billion after taxes and other adjustments, the company said Thursday, noting that its total investment in the assets was only $540 million. EnCana said its previously-announced divestiture of its Ecuador assets and select conventional producing properties in Western Canada should go through later this year.

With the exception of three energy-related tax provisions, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-CA) has decided to largely forego piggybacking a package of energy tax breaks and incentives to the House version of the corporate tax cut bill (HR 4520).

With the exception of three energy-related tax provisions, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-CA) has decided to largely forego piggybacking a package of energy tax breaks and incentives to the House version of the corporate tax cut bill (HR 4520).

Top House-Senate Republican negotiators are shooting to have a conference committee vote on the final report for a broad energy bill by Friday, but they acknowledge that this might not occur if negotiations over the multi-billion tax title of the measure are not completed, and internal GOP differences over the electricity and ethanol provisions are not resolved by then.

Following last week’s payment of $75 million in local property taxes, bankrupt Pacific Gas and Electric Co. announced Monday that it had paid $113 million in 2002 franchise fees to 290 cities and counties in which it operates over the northern two-thirds of California.

Duke Energy North America (DENA) will be firing up about 2,300MW of new merchant generation capacity this summer to capture someof the load growth and higher electric power prices in Texas, theMidwest and New England.