Widespread

The latest surfacing of a class action lawsuit stemming from widespread allegations of western wholesale energy market manipulation going back seven or eight years is a low-profile second cousin to the multi-billion-dollar California-Arizona border price-focused cases targeting Sempra Energy and El Paso Natural Gas Co., both of which have been settled (see Daily GPI, June 26). This case is about alleged wholesale gas trading transgressions — not playing with interstate pipeline capacities to spike prices.

With most of a widespread heat wave not due to arrive until after the weekend and continued prior-day negative guidance from July futures, cash prices fell again Friday at nearly all points. The typical weekend loss of industrial load and California OFOs contributed to the overall bearishness.

Despite the widespread congressional criticism of the Minerals Management Services’ (MMS) royalty-relief program, the Interior Department agency has issued a proposed rule that seeks to expand royalty relief for deep and ultra-deep natural gas production in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS).

Despite the widespread congressional criticism of the Minerals Management Services’ (MMS) royalty-relief program, the Interior Department agency issued a proposed rule Friday that seeks to expand royalty relief for deep and ultra-deep natural gas production in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS).

While electricity deregulation in Virginia has been a widespread failure to this point, a new survey released this week showed that an astounding 85% of Virginians want to have the option to choose an electricity supplier.

Looking beyond a cold weekend in the Midwest and Northeast to forecasts of widespread above-normal temperatures in the coming week, traders sent prices lower at nearly all points Friday. Thursday’s 12.4-cent loss by April futures and the weekend decline of industrial load put further negative pressure on Friday’s pricing.

The Bush administration, in order to avoid widespread litigation, needs to use “sugar” rather than a “hammer” to get producers to renegotiate their faulty 1998-1999 leases that are costing the federal government billions in lost royalties, the head of the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) told a House Natural Resources’ subcommittee Tuesday.

Prices skyrocketed at all points Monday as continuing (and widespread) cold weather combined with a half-dollar-plus leap Friday by February futures to bolster the cash market. Just like last week, Northeast citygates saw instances of increases surpassing a dollar, although Monday’s gains fell far short of the triple-digit gains on the Tuesday following Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which carried four Northeast averages into $10-plus territory.

An event that temporarily dropped gas prices to lows of 90 cents in the Rockies and led to widespread gas flow disruptions was over in a matter of days last week. With help from Kinder Morgan, EnCana and others, Wyoming Interstate Co. (WIC) managed to resume full pipeline operations late Thursday afternoon, five days after the driver of a bulldozer working on the Rockies Express pipeline caused a pipeline explosion on WIC about 10 miles south-southwest of Cheyenne, WY.