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Oil Patch Insider Enron gets clean bill in Alberta; Rumor mill says Cosmopolitan to have new partner
With unparalleled speed, Alberta’s electricity market watchdog decided it had no reason to revisit its investigation into claims that Enron may have manipulated the province’s power prices.
Alberta’s Market Surveillance Administrator said Feb. 11 there was “no basis” for reopening a 1999 probe into suspicions of price fixing, despite suggestions by a Washington state utility that Enron may have used Alberta to test market manipulation techniques.
MSA President Martin Merritt said the same allegations were investigated five years ago and yielded no proof of wrongdoing. MSA based its latest findings on transcripts provided by the Snohomish County Public Utility District.
Merritt said Feb. 8 that the “proverbial delivery van has backed up and now we have the considerable job of going through this information” — a task that was completed in three days.
The Canadian Competition Bureau had also concluded in 2000 that there was no evidence of collusion in wholesale power bids after probing “behavior that appeared to be consistent with criminal bid-rigging.”
However, Alberta’s opposition political parties are continuing to hound the government.Liberal energy spokesman Hugh MacDonald pledged to continue efforts to “convince the government that we need to have a full, independent, thorough public inquiry into this mater.”
New Democrat leader Brian Mason brushed the MSA off as an “apologist” for deregulation of Alberta’s market and challenged its objectivity and independence from government policy-making.
But a spokeswoman for Energy Minister Greg Melchin said the government would take its lead from the MSA. New partner at Cosmo? The word on the street is Conoco-Phillips has sent a letter to the two other working interest owners in the Southcentral Alaska Cosmopolitan unit telling them it has a deal to sell a chunk of its working interest to a fourth company.
The other owners — Forest Oil and Devon Energy — have first option on the interest. Devon, which has already increased its working interest from 5 percent to 17.5 percent by buying half of Forest’s interest, could be the buyer. But rumors say a fourth company is coming in, possibly Pioneer Natural Resources.
No one is talking but Devon spokesman Chip Minty said Petroleum News in November that a farm-in deal with Conoco was “possible,” but “not imminent.”
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