Tougher

Interior Department Acting Inspector General Mary L. Kendall has recommended stricter controls on the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) auction process and tougher requirements for bidders to avoid a repeat of the scene last December where a bad-faith bidder disrupted a Utah auction to protest the impact of drilling on the environment (see NGI, Dec. 22, 2008).

Interior Department Acting Inspector General Mary L. Kendall has recommended stricter controls on the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) auction process and tougher requirements for bidders to avoid a repeat of the scene last December where a bad-faith bidder disrupted a Utah auction to protest the impact of drilling on the environment (see Daily GPI, Dec. 22, 2008).

The Senate recently passed legislation that could make it tougher for foreign companies to buy U.S. electric power companies and other domestic energy assets.

The Senate last week passed by voice vote legislation that could make it tougher for foreign companies to buy U.S. electric power companies and other domestic energy assets.

The last gasp of winter may have been heard last Thursday when the Energy Information Administration (EIA) startled market observers by reporting a 9 Bcf net withdrawal from gas storage for the week ending April 4 after two weeks of solid net injections.

The winter apparently isn’t dead yet. After two weeks of solid net injections into gas storage, market observers were startled Thursday morning when the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported a 9 Bcf net withdrawal during the past week. It was clearly a step in the wrong direction if the industry plans to make an attempt at rivaling the record injection rate in 2001 just to get storage back to near adequate levels by the beginning of next winter.

Rather than make the lower just and reasonable standard the default measuring stick used in reviews of wholesale power contracts, FERC should instead adopt an approach touted by FERC Commissioners Nora Brownell and Linda Breathitt that would apply the more stringent public interest standard by default to such situations, a number of industry participants recently told the Commission.

FERC Chairman Pat Wood last Wednesday said that it is getting tougher for him to remain committed to the voluntary nature of the Commission’s landmark Order 2000, which spelled out the agency’s expectations that transmission owners will join regional transmission organizations (RTOs), against the backdrop of several RTO membership rosters remaining in a state of flux several years after that decision was issued.

Officials of Florida Gas Transmission faced a tougher crowd than usual at its customer meeting in Key Biscayne, FL late in the week ending May 10, according to reports from attendees. The shippers were upset about two force majeures declared by the pipe in the days leading up to the meeting, and that was before a third force majeure in just over a week occurred on the meeting’s last day. Disagreements about curtailment priorities were also on the customers’ agenda.