Victim

The nomination of David Hayes to be deputy secretary of the Department of Interior fell victim to the ongoing war between Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and natural resources interests as a cloture vote aimed at bringing the nomination to the floor failed.

Notwithstanding a hedging strategy that fell victim to robust commodity prices, Chesapeake Energy Corp. executives Friday touted a “record quarter” on a per-share adjusted basis with earnings of $1.09/share, the most in the company’s 15-year history.

Notwithstanding a hedging strategy that fell victim to robust commodity prices, Chesapeake Energy Corp. executives last week touted a “record quarter” on a per-share adjusted basis with earnings of $1.09/share, the most in the company’s 15-year history.

WilliamsEnergyNewsLive.com, Williams’ internet-based live daily energy news report, will sign off the air Dec. 31, a victim of budget cuts.

The round-trip energy marketing scandal claimed another victim Friday, after CMS Energy Corp. announced the resignation of William T. McCormick as chairman and CEO. The Dearborn, MI-based company’s board of directors will establish a special committee of independent directors in the next week to investigate “matters surrounding round-trip trades” conducted by the CMS Marketing, Services and Trading (CMS-MST) unit, and in turn, the company plans to amend “as soon as practical” its 2001 10-K to restate its financial statements for 2000 and 2001 to eliminate all revenue and expense related to the wash trades.

A major new pipeline project to serve the California market has fallen by the wayside, the victim of lower demand, according to sponsors Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP (KMP) and Calpine Corp. The two companies said they were dropping their $1.7 billion, 1,030 mile proposed pipeline that would have run from the San Juan Basin in New Mexico to Needles and Topock near the California border.

A major new pipeline project to serve the California market has fallen by the wayside, the victim of lower demand, according to sponsors Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP (KMP) and Calpine Corp. The two companies said Friday they were dropping their $1.7 billion, 1,030 mile proposed pipeline that would have run from the San Juan Basin in New Mexico to Needles and Topock near the California border.

Claiming to be an innocent victim, TXU Energy Trading is seekinga stay of a decision ordering CNG Transmission to turn overpipeline capacity that was initially awarded to TXU toan existingpipeline shipper, who FERC found had properly exercised itsright-of-first-refusal (ROFR) for the capacity.

The bloody battle over the right to merge with Southwest GasCorp. has recently claimed another victim: Arizona CorporationCommissioner (ACC) Jim Irvin. Federal and state authorities areinvestigating allegations that the state regulator illegallyinfluenced Southwest Gas to go with Oneok Inc. as a merger partnerinstead of rival suitor Southern Union Co.