Views

Black Hills Corp. and NRG Energy Inc. officials last week offered decidedly different views on coal-to-natural gas switching during separate conference calls to discuss 2Q2012 earnings performance.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. defended itself against a story in an upcoming issue of Rolling Stone magazine that the producer is claiming contains several inaccuracies.

General Electric views the future of energy globally as upbeat, citing several “positive trends in energy” in reporting a 58% hike in its operating earnings to $3.5 billion in the first quarter this year, compared to the same period in 2010. Both CEO Jeffrey Immelt and CFO Keith Sherin talked bullishly about GE’s various energy plays, particularly global turbine orders, during a conference call with financial analysts Thursday.

April natural gas futures suffered a double-digit loss Tuesday as bearish views on the market — which ranged from robust selling by short-term traders to abundant production — trumped those seeing a tighter storage dynamic firming prices. At the close April futures had retreated 16.4 cents to $3.873 and May natural gas had fallen 16.0 cents to $3.950. April crude oil surged $2.66 to $99.63/bbl as concern surfaced that Libyan unrest would spread to Saudi Arabia and Iran.

With a potential equity and energy interest in both, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) views major interstate natural gas pipeline and electric transmission projects in the Pacific Northwest as treading water, awaiting other key market and regulatory developments, according to PG&E Corp. CEO Peter Darbee, speaking on a conference call with financial analysts last Wednesday. For now, the projects are in what Darbee called the San Francisco-based combination utility’s “far-end guidance period” (2012-13).

With a potential equity and energy interest in both, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) views major interstate natural gas pipeline and electric transmission projects in the Pacific Northwest as treading water, awaiting other key market and regulatory developments, according to PG&E Corp. CEO Peter Darbee, speaking on a conference call with financial analysts Wednesday. For now, the projects are in what Darbee called the San Francisco-based combination utility’s “far-end guidance period” (2012-13).

A pair of weather forecasts issued last week offered differing views of upcoming temperatures in the Northeast, with one saying the region may be seeing an early start to wintry conditions and another predicting a warmer-than-normal November. Both forecasts called for colder-than-average temperatures to dominate the region in December.

A pair of weather forecasts issued Monday offer differing views of upcoming temperatures in the Northeast, with one saying the region may be seeing an early start to wintry conditions and another predicting a warmer-than-normal November. Both forecasts call for colder-than-average temperatures to dominate the region in December.

With active hedging to manage its 23,000 MW fleet of independent electric generation plants, Princeton, NJ-based NRG Energy Inc. views this summer and long-term with a “fundamentally bullish” attitude toward natural gas prices, CEO David Crane said last Thursday during a conference call with financial analysts.