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Hours after the deadline passed for the White House and the Office of Vice President to comply with congressional subpoenas, the White House late Tuesday began turning over documents to the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee related to its contacts with the now-bankrupt Enron Corp. The committee said “one box and one accordion folder of documents” had been delivered by the end of the day.

In its latest seasonal update for June to August, WSI Corp. is forecasting a relatively strong cooling demand in the Northeast and Southwest, which raises the possibility of electricity-driven price support at key regional gas hubs this summer. Although cooler temperatures in the Pacific Northwest and Southeast should free up power for export to neighboring regions, WSI said, “constrained areas with limited generating and import capacity, such as New York City, Long Island and southwest Connecticut, remain vulnerable to heat-driven price spikes.”

CONSOL Energy Inc., primarily a coal mining company which has recently branched out into coalbed methane and regular gas production, announced Tuesday it also has begun producing commercial quantities of natural gas from properties it controls in northeastern Tennessee through a joint venture called Knox Energy.

Exploration partners Anadarko Petroleum and Phillips Alaska bought up the most tracts in the Bureau of Land Management’s second lease sale since the United States resumed leasing in the Alaska National Petroleum Reserve (NPR-A) three years ago. The two companies, which have been most active in the reserve, are expected to be awarded 34 tracts with winning bids of $9.6 million. The entire lease sale generated winning bids totaling $63.8 million for 60 tracts covering 579,269 acres.

Canadian 88 Energy Corp. plans to file a preliminary short-form prospectus on Wednesday by way of a secondary offering in Canada after 19% shareholder Duke Energy said it would sell its entire stake in the Calgary-based producer. Duke announced that it has accepted an offer to sell its 25.79 million shares to an underwriting syndicate for C$72.2 million (US$47.2 million) — about C$2.80 each.

In yet another indication that Enron Corp.’s bankruptcy is continuing to wreak havoc in the energy business, Houston-based junior independent Contour Energy said Tuesday that a bankruptcy filing is likely after a trustee for its senior notes called for the immediate and full payment of $105 million in principal and interest of its debt in an acceleration notice. In April, Contour began to evaluate its options after losing its natural gas price hedges as a result of Enron’s bankruptcy.

EnCana Corp. said Tuesday that it has completed a major land acquisition program along the Devonian Jean Marie reef margin in the Greater Sierra region in northeast British Columbia. With the acquisition, the company now holds more than 2 million net acres of land on the Greater Sierra play, which is one of the fastest growing gas producing regions in North America. In total, the company estimated that it has spent C$100 million (US$65-70 million) on the acquisitions.

California’s Gov. Gray Davis Friday released a letter he wrote President Bush concerning the federal government’s approach toward offshore oil and gas leases. In a tongue-and-cheek letter dated last Thursday, Davis makes a pitch for federal funds to help protect California’s coastal waters similar to action taken recently in Florida.

Denver-based independent Delta Petroleum Corp. more than doubled its daily gas production with the purchase of the domestic oil and gas assets of Castle Energy Corp. The transaction includes interests in about 525 producing wells in 14 states, plus undeveloped acreage, with proved reserves of 62 Bcfe and proved developed producing reserves totaling 32 Bcfe. As part of the purchase price, the company issued 9.56 million new shares of common stock to Castle Energy.