Yesterday

The House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on energy and air quality yesterday voted 17-13 to forward a Republican stopgap bill to aid California to the full panel. The vote on the measure, sponsored by Subcommittee Chairman Joe Barton (R-TX), was strictly along party lines.

Small oil producer Canadian Superior Energy announced late yesterday a takeover bid for Canadian 88 Energy Corp. The stock swap deal would put Canadian 88’s maverick former CEO Greg Noval back in control of the firm.

After failing for the third day in a row to sustain a move beneath $4.20, natural gas futures rallied yesterday as traders began to cover shorts initiated during the recent price erosion. At the closing bell, the June contract was 14.6 cents higher at $4.348.

Producers and analysts sent up red flags yesterday at GasMart/Power 2001 in Tampa, FL, about future gas supply potential north of the border. Currently known resources appear to be inadequate and at the current rate of production would be depleted in little more than a decade. Furthermore, the common belief that new sources of supply will be adequate to replace rapidly depleting reserves may be mistaken, the experts said.

With minor modifications and clarifications, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission accepted a settlement yesterday between the Midwest ISO, several of its transmission-owning members and the Alliance RTO.

Consolidated Edison Inc. yesterday disclosed that it has approved plans for its Con Edison Development (CED) subsidiary to add capacity totaling more than 600 MW at power generating facilities in New Jersey and Massachusetts. The plant expansions will take place at facilities owned by CED in Lakewood, NJ, and West Springfield, MA.

FERC announced yesterday that it has scheduled a public conference for later this month to address the state of “current and projected” interstate gas pipeline capacity to the California market, as well as explore what is driving the higher gas prices in the southern end of the state.

Sierra Pacific Resources and Enron Corp. agreed yesterday to terminate their purchase and sale agreement for Enron’s wholly owned electric utility subsidiary, Portland General Electric. The termination had been hinted at during a recent conference call with Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling (see Daily GPI, March 26).

Is that an “I told you so” coming from the Barrett Resources board room? Yesterday, Royal Dutch/Shell raised its bid $5 a share for the Denver-based independent, and is now valuing the gas-rich company at $2.01 billion. Shell launched a hostile takeover bid in March for $55 a share, but Barrett had said the offer was too small (see Daily GPI, March 12).