Trying

Former Enron Corp. CEO Jeffrey Skilling last week accused the government of trying to “rewrite history” and pin the blame for the company’s collapse on “innocent people.” Skilling, who spent four days on the witness stand defending himself, said he is “absolutely innocent” of the 28 criminal charges against him and will fight to prove his innocence “until the day I die.”

Drillers apparently were trying to fix some problems with a new natural gas well in western Palo Pinto County, TX early Friday when the ground exploded, sending up a fireball seen 100 miles away. Only one person was slightly injured, according to a spokeswoman for the Texas Railroad Commission.

Producers and stakeholders trying to iron out problems with the long-stalled $7 billion Mackenzie Valley natural gas pipeline may be close to making a “positive announcement,” a member of the negotiating team said Thursday.

After gapping under $12 in the overnight Monday Access session to open Tuesday at $11.80, December natural gas spent the majority of the regular session trying to rebound. The prompt month got as high as $12.07 before collapsing again to close at $11.86, down 34.5 cents. Tuesday’s trade brings the week’s total losses to $1.195 after only two days of trading.

Still trying to make heads or tails on what the long-term repercussions from Hurricane Rita will be, November natural gas futures stayed in a fairly tight range Monday before settling at $14.017, up 9.6 cents from Friday.

Duke Energy officials said last week that 6,200 MW, or about 63% of the company’s remaining merchant generation, will go on the auction block and will be sold separately from Duke Energy North America’s (DENA) energy trading book. CEO Paul Anderson said the company intends to focus only on the Midwest merchant energy market and the sale of these assets will better prepare Duke for its $9 billion merger with Cinergy.

With power off, land lines down and cellular phone towers demolished, communication continued to be a major problem for oil and natural gas companies trying to assess damage onshore and offshore from Hurricane Katrina on Wednesday.

The Senate on Tuesday passed a sweeping, bipartisan energy bill, bringing the Congress to the critical, do-or-die point of trying to reconcile the widely divergent House and Senate versions of the energy measure. Congress has failed at this task twice in recent years.

Federal and Northwest Territories governments are trying to rescue Canada’s arctic natural gas pipeline project by making a deal on community services along the proposed Mackenzie Valley pipeline route, but whether the approach will do the job remains to be seen.