Regulatory

Canada’s National Energy Board (NEB) last week granted import/export licenses to two liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal projects. Separately, backers of Goldboro LNG and Bear Head LNG received approvals to send liquefied U.S. and Canadian gas to world markets.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) on Wednesday held an unprecedented public hearing on reforming the five-member regulatory panel’s inner workings, but much of the feedback it received pointed toward proposed legislative reforms.

Fifteen states — led by West Virginia and including several oil and gas heavyweights — have filed an emergency petition in federal court, urging it to postpone the deadlines set forth earlier this month by the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan (CPP).

San Francisco-based Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) said Friday it has paid a $300 million fine assessed by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) for the combination utility’s complicity in the 2010 San Bruno natural gas transmission pipeline rupture and explosion that killed eight people.

FERC staff issued a favorable final environmental impact statement (EIS) for the Lake Charles Liquefaction Project proposed by Trunkline Gas Co. LLC, Lake Charles LNG Co. LLC and Lake Charles LNG Export Co. LLC.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced Friday that Mark Wetjen, a former acting chairman of the Commission and a member since 2011, will be resigning later this month.

Affiliates of BP plc gamed the market for natural gas at the Houston Ship Channel (HSC) during two and a half months in 2008 after Hurricane Ike in “…a classic case of physical for financial benefits,” a FERC administrative law judge (ALJ) said Thursday. The ALJ opinion is not final and is subject to Commission review. BP strongly objected and will appeal the judgement.

FERC will prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) for the related pipeline projects Rayne XPress Expansion by Columbia Gulf Transmission LLC and the Leach XPress project of affiliate Columbia Gas Transmission LLC, which would create more Marcellus/Utica shale exit capacity.

The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office has reached another settlement with a retail electric generation supplier to resolve consumer complaints that it deceptively marketed its variable electric rates during the brutally cold winter of 2013-2014.