Wide

Republican House energy leaders have urged the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to expand its California market mitigation plan to 24 hours a day across the West this summer.

Scott N. Smith has joined American Electric Power (AEP) as vice president and chief risk officer. He will be responsible for enterprise-wide risk management, including oversight of commodity, operational, credit, interest rate and currency risk across all business units and functional areas. Smith, 37, previously was vice president of risk management for Global Consumer Bank, a division of Citigroup.

California signed another nine long-term power contracts for 900 MW in May and state-wide demand dropped by 11% (3,500 MW) compared to the same month a year earlier, Gov. Gray Davis administration energy officials announced over the weekend in a conference call with reporters. Overall peak demand for electricity dropped 10%, they said.

With the official start of spring, time began to press California’s wide-ranging efforts to fix past, present and future (short and long-term) energy problems. For every positive last week, there seemed to be greater negative developments to deal with, rolling blackouts being the most dramatic. By last Friday, the prospect for bigger problems ahead seemed unavoidable.

With the official start of spring, time began to pressCalifornia’s wide-ranging efforts to fix past, present and future(short-and long-term) energy problems. For every positive lastweek, there seemed to be greater negative developments to dealwith, rolling blackouts being the most dramatic. By last Friday,the prospect for bigger problems ahead seemed unavoidable.

After trading within a wide, 58-cent trading range over the past10 trading days, November futures could barely eke out a nickelrange during the regular open-outcry session Tuesday, as traderselected to remain mostly on the sidelines ahead of fresh weatherand storage news expected this afternoon. The prompt month finisheddown 1.6 cents at $5.134 in a session that saw a scant 48,674contracts change hands.

After etching out a wide, half-dollar trading range last week,natural gas futures settled down appreciably Tuesday, as tradersremained largely on the sidelines ahead of the release of freshweather and storage news. Low estimated volume of just 46,818 was atestament to the quiet session.

Separate Congressional and regulatory hearings in San Diego lastweek turned up a wide array of potential prescriptions for curingwhat ails California’s still-convalescing wholesale power market,but it also exposed the continuing federal-state head-butting.State officials mostly want to first satisfy the consumer-relatedproblems, returning to regulated rates if necessary, while FederalEnergy Regulatory Commission members don’t want to abandon theiralmost decade-long push for market-based energy industries.

The Department of Transportation’s Office of Pipeline Safety(OPS) has issued an industry-wide bulletin advising operators andowners of gas transmission pipelines to review their monitoringprograms and operations for detecting the presence of internalcorrosion on their systems.