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Environmental surcharges will be permanently tacked onto Canadian pipeline tolls if the National Energy Board (NEB) grants requests by natural gas and oil transporters to make shippers cover cleanup liabilities.

Long on the defense regarding the historic Macondo well blowout in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico three years ago, BP plc has gone on the offensive to recover some of the settlements it’s paid out for Gulf Coast businesses that may have been inflated or fictitious.

The House Friday passed legislation that would open more federal waters to oil and natural gas exploration and production, but the bill has next to no chance of advancing in the Senate and being signed into law by President Obama.

The oil and natural gas industry will have access to the same kind of risk-management practices used by astronauts and the technicians on the ground who support them through an alliance formed by Deloitte Center for Energy Solutions and the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC).

Global deepwater drilling activity is going on a rampage, with spending set to more than double over the coming decade, according to Wood Mackenzie.

In the midst of calls to “throw the book” at Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) after the San Bruno natural gas transmission pipeline explosion (see Daily GPI, June 7), a California regulator on Thursday found reason to praise the often-criticized San Francisco-based combination utility.

Idaho regulators are looking at the latest integrated resource plan (IRP) of PacifiCorp’s Rocky Mountain Power unit, which assumes modest 1.1% annual growth and some changes in coal-fired power generation, including the retirement of a unit and replacement with a new natural gas-fired generation facility. Salt Lake City-based Rocky Mountain is the PacifiCorp operating utility in Idaho, Utah and Wyoming. Part of the IRP filed with the Idaho Public Utilities Commission (PUC) calls for Rocky Mountain converting its Naughton Unit 3 coal-fired plant near Kemmerer, WY, to a natural gas-fired plant, and installing emissions control equipment on coal units in Utah (Hunter Unit 1) and Wyoming (Jim Bridger Units 3 and 4). The utility said that these plans are not final, due to the uncertainty of the future federal carbon tax legislation and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s final new standards for power plants. The PUC said it is taking comments from the public through Aug. 8.

Cash natural gas prices Friday for Monday delivery followed the lead of Thursday’s futures and fell 16 cents on average. Almost all points fell into the loss column, and only a few market points escaped double-digit losses.

A global leader in natural gas engines, Vancouver, BC-based Westport Innovations Inc. on Friday said it has acquired a leading conversion company, BAF Technologies Inc., from Clean Energy Fuels Corp., the California-based natural gas vehicle (NGV) fueling company. Westport secured the deal with $25 million worth of its stock.