Triggers

Alaska has joined a large number of states — 16 as of Wednesday — in a lawsuit challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) controversial endangerment finding that triggers the agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under the Clean Air Act (CAA). But a like-minded number of states earlier this year sought to intervene on behalf of the EPA.

With state officials squeezing the legal triggers on Enron out West last week, California’s two U.S. Senators applied political pressure in Washington, DC, in an effort to further dramatize the state’s long-standing claims for up to $9 billion in wholesale power cost refunds.

In one of what surely will be a long list of footnotes to the conclusion of the nation’s largest utility bankruptcy, PG&E Corp. announced late Monday that a creation of California’s energy crisis in late 2000, a “shareholder rights plan,” automatically expired with the emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy by the holding company’s utility, Pacific Gas and Electric Co.

An explosion and fire triggered a force majeure on the Northern Natural Gas pipeline system at the unmanned Kermit Compressor Station in West Texas early last Thursday morning. There were no injuries but the explosion demolished several buildings and a portion of the 30-inch diameter mainline at the station, which is in a sparsely populated area in Winkler County, Northern officials said.

An explosion and fire triggered a force majeure on the Northern Natural Gas pipeline system in West Texas early Thursday morning. There were no injuries but the explosion apparently demolished one of two buildings housing the Kermit Compressor Station, which is in an isolated part of West Texas in Winkler County, Northern officials said. About 13 receipt points and 75 MMcf/d of supply were affected, according to a Northern Natural spokesman.

The widespread blast of Arctic cold put a strain on natural gas and electricity distribution across the eastern third of the United States last week as consumers cranked up their heat to counteract single-digit temperatures in many locations. Utilities as far south as Florida, where temperatures dipped to the lowest level in more than a decade, warned consumers to take precautions and conserve energy as delivery systems were tested and old records were broken for gas and power sendout.

If Houston-based Enron Corp., the acknowledged largest energy trader in the world, had a wish list of things it might want to add to its bartering bag, it might be to trade in this entire year. So far, the news seems to have gone from bad to worse, with business deals gone sour, the CEO abruptly departing last summer, the first quarterly loss in more than four years, rumors of shady business deals, and as of Friday, a plunging stock price that seems to find no floor.

With winter finally arriving after a string of eight weeks of warmer than normal weather, gas demand is on the rise but probably not enough to put a dent in the storage surplus compared to levels last year, according to experts. Withdrawals during this period last year were substantial and continue to be difficult to match.

In three distinct selling waves, natural gas futures plummetedlower yesterday as traders liquidated long positions andestablished fresh shorts amid a bevy of bearish fundamental news.Feeding off losses incurred in the overnight session, the Februarycontract gapped down at the open Wednesday and shuffled lower tothe $7.50 level by 2 p.m. (EST).