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Energy
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June 19, 2013
Cape Wind Lands $200M Investment From Danish Pension Fund
The controversial Cape Wind offshore wind farm will receive a $200 million investment from Danish pension fund PensionDanmark in a push to close the deal and start construction on the Nantucket Sound-based project this year, PensionDanmark said Tuesday.
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June 19, 2013
Cyprus Inks Gas Processing Deal With Noble, Delek Units
Cyprus on Wednesday said its Cabinet has approved a preliminary deal with U.S. oil and gas outfit Noble Energy Inc. and Israeli affiliates Avner Oil Exploration LP and Delek Drilling LP for the development of a natural gas processing facility.
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June 19, 2013
New Water Regs Toothless On Oil, Gas Discharges, Pa. Told
Revisions to Pennsylvania’s water quality regulations don’t adequately address the discharge of oil and gas drilling wastewater into the state’s waterways, Democratic lawmakers and environmental groups told a state regulatory review board in a letter Tuesday.
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June 19, 2013
TVA Fined Over Nuke Plant Construction Lapses
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Wednesday said it would fine the Tennessee Valley Authority $70,000 for failing to take required steps to ensure components used in the $4 billion construction of a new unit at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in Tennessee were of sufficient quality.
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June 19, 2013
Patriot Coal In Ch. 11 Plan Talks With Hedge Funds
Bankrupt Patriot Coal Corp. said Tuesday that it is in talks with two hedge fund bondholders about a reorganization plan that would provide hundreds of millions of dollars in financing through a rights offering.
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June 18, 2013
States, Cities, Enviros Postpone EPA Emissions Rule Suit
Twelve states and cities and three major environmental groups that threatened to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over failing to issue emissions regulations for power plants said Tuesday they will delay litigation until after the White House's upcoming climate change policy announcement.
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June 18, 2013
China Lacks Desire To Enforce Costly New Clean Air Regs
China's new air pollution rules call for unprecedented emissions restrictions that could prove costly for companies that operate in the country, but experts doubt the business-friendly government will be willing to enforce environmental measures that threaten to slow economic growth.
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June 18, 2013
Coal Group's Brief Muddies Conservation Fund Suit, Feds Say
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Monday that a Pennsylvania coal industry group’s amicus brief in support of a mining company’s attempt to recover fees it had paid into a conservation program since declared unenforceable raised new arguments and should be ignored by the court.
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June 18, 2013
Denham's $100M Buy-In Adds Fuel To PE Scramble For Africa
Private equity firm Denham Capital Management LP said Tuesday that it would spend $100 million to launch Endeavor Energy Holdings LLC, a company that will invest in thermal and hydroelectric projects in Africa, the latest private equity foray into Africa's energy resources.
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June 18, 2013
Texas Appeals Court Revives Suit Over Gas Delivery Deal
A Texas appeals court on Tuesday revived an energy developer’s suit against Kachina Pipeline Co. Inc., ruling that the pipeline operator improperly tried to extend a contract to supply natural gas while withholding unauthorized marketing costs.
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June 18, 2013
Judge Nixes Bid To Halt $400M Kinder Morgan Pipeline
A federal judge on Monday rejected a Native American tribe's bid to halt Kinder Morgan Inc.'s construction of a portion of the $400 million natural gas pipeline expansion in Pennsylvania and New Jersey over alleged desecration of sacred land, calling the tribe's injunction request speculative and legally deficient.
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June 18, 2013
Tesoro To Shed Assets To Close $355M Chevron Pipeline Buy
The Federal Trade Commission said Monday it would allow Tesoro Corp. to move forward with its $355 million purchase of certain Chevron Pipe Line Co. assets after Tesoro agreed to sell a petroleum terminal in Boise, Idaho, to allay the regulator's antitrust worries.
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June 18, 2013
New DOE Chief's Plans Include Billions For Renewables R&D
President Barack Obama’s new energy secretary on Tuesday said the U.S. Department of Energy plans to invest billions of dollars in research and development funds for alternative energy, telling a House committee that he was bullish on the prospect of solar energy.
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June 18, 2013
Army Corps Won't Perform Sweeping Coal Export Review
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Tuesday rebuffed pleas from environmentalists and lawmakers to perform an overarching environmental review of three proposed coal export terminals in the Pacific Northwest and said it would limit its review of greenhouse gas emissions to the facilities themselves.
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June 18, 2013
Par Petroleum To Shell Out $400M For Tesoro Hawaii
Houston-based Par Petroleum Corp. said Monday it has agreed to pay Tesoro Corp. nearly $400 million to acquire the company’s Hawaii subsidiary, which operates a 94,000-barrel-per-day refinery, more than two dozen retail gas stations, and pipeline and logistics facilities.
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June 18, 2013
Lenders Up Cash Bid By $10M For ATP Oil Assets
A group of lenders led by Credit Suisse Group AG looking to buy ATP Oil & Gas Corp.’s oil and gas leases have upped their cash bid by $10 million, according to documents filed Monday in Texas bankruptcy court.
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June 18, 2013
K-Sea Escapes Investor Suit Over Obsolete Oil Tankers
A New Jersey federal judge on Friday tossed a putative class action alleging oil barge operator K-Sea Transportation Partners LP misled investors in 2009 about the company’s earnings and neglected to reveal that its obsolete fleet of single-hull tankers would be phased out.
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June 18, 2013
Pa. Justices Clarify Reimbursement Rule For Fuel-Tank Fees
Indemnification fees paid into a state fund used to compensate property owners for the removal of underground fuel storage tanks must be current for the entire site before a reimbursement claim can be processed, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled on Monday.
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June 18, 2013
NY Lawmakers Set To Strip LIPA Of Grid Oversight
New York state lawmakers desperate to avoid future post-storm service fiascoes on Long Island hashed out legislation Monday to reform the Long Island Power Authority, largely stripping its oversight over the electric grid, putting the grid under the purview of state regulators and refinancing its massive debt.
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June 18, 2013
Ill. Gov. Signs Nation's Toughest Fracking Law
Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn on Monday signed into law a bill to regulate hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in the state, saying the legislation would give the state the strongest environmental standards for the practice in the U.S.
Expert Analysis
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Whyte V. Barclays Follows The 546 Safe Harbor Trend
In Whyte v. Barclays Bank PLC, the Southern District of New York recently dismissed the complaint of the trustee for the SemGroup estate seeking to avoid a novation made to Barclays pre-bankruptcy under a swap agreement. This is one of a number of cases in recent years that treats the safe harbors — particularly the section 546 safe harbors — as broadly protective of nondebtor transferees in financial transactions, say Jonathan Guy and Douglas Mintz of Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP.
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Challenges Still Ahead After Ill.'s New Fracking Bill
In light of the long-awaited hydraulic fracturing legislation now signed by Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, supporters of high-volume horizontal fracking who see the potential for enormous economic benefits are looking eagerly ahead to when permitted drilling operations can begin in the New Albany Shale reserve. But, even with enactment of the fracking legislation into law, significant challenges still lie ahead, say attorneys with Quarles & Brady LLP.
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UK Joint Ventures: Sanctions And Corruption Risks
What should be at the forefront of the mind of any in-house counsel or compliance officer whose company operates in joint ventures is section 7 of the U.K. Bribery Act, which holds that an organization does not even need to be aware of corrupt conduct in order to be guilty of an offense, say attorneys with Dechert LLP.
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A Template For Designing Mass Tort Settlement Structures
The work of the Gulf Coast Claims Facility in response to the Deep Water Horizon explosion and oil spill provides a modern paradigm for organizing and delivering financial relief to economic victims of extraordinary environmental disasters. Several aspects of the GCCF case, such as the application of payment algorithms, can be applied as a framework for other mass torts, say Thomas Vasquez and Ilan Guedji of Analysis Research Planning Corporation.
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Digging Into SEC Mineral Disclosure Policies
Recent U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rules require resource extraction issuers to disclose annually certain information on payments they make to the U.S. government and foreign governments for the purpose of the commercial development of oil, natural gas or minerals. But while these rules were accompanied by extensive adopting releases, ambiguities remain, resulting in a substantial number of compliance questions, say attorneys with Mayer Brown LLP.
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Extra Layer Of Rules On Fracking On Federal, Tribal Lands
The latest U.S. Bureau of Land Management push for rules on hydraulic fracturing on federal and tribal lands would add another layer of regulation to oil and gas operators, with important changes on requirements such as cementing, construction chemical reporting, say attorneys with Latham & Watkins LLP.
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Is TAR Right For Your Discovery Project?
There are several critical decision factors to weigh to assess whether Technology Assisted Review is right for a discovery project — for example, the nature of the case, internal capabilities, production considerations and overall comfort with this technology, say Michele Lange and Joseph White of Kroll Ontrack Inc.
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Top DOI Issues To Watch This Month
June brings dramatic changes at the top of the U.S. Department of the Interior. New hands will control the levers of power, and, as a result, the organization that controls one-fifth of the land area of the United States, 35,000 miles of coastline and 1.75 billion acres of offshore resources will alter how it operates, making one wonder what will happen next, says Steven Richardson of Wiley Rein LLP.
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Class Arbitration Is Back In Arbitrators’ Hands
Arbitrators can still interpret contracts pretty much any way they want, according to the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling in Oxford Health Plans LLC v. Sutter. The holding should come as no great surprise as it reflects decades of federal arbitration law, yet the unanimous ruling is a surprise, given what preceded it, says Christopher King of Homer Bonner Jacobs.
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The Other Pivot: Russian Energy Policy Toward China
In 2010, when the Obama administration announced a new policy of engagement in the western Pacific, known as the “Pivot,” it was clear that China’s quest for secure supply lines for resources, in particular energy, was a key factor. Energy is likewise the driver in another less noticed but quite important pivot that is now fully underway: a shift in Russian energy policy toward China, says Shane DeBeer of Dechert LLP.