El Paso set an imbalance threshold of 5% in declaring a systemwide Strained Operating Condition (SOC) Wednesday. The pipeline said it has been experiencing declining linepack as a result of takes that are in excess of scheduled quantities and underperforming receipt volumes. Linepack continues to decline despite the Washington Ranch storage facility operating at maximum withdrawal capacity, El Paso said. Prior to announcing the SOC, it said the supply shortfall in the San Juan Basin was about 400 MMcf/d.

Northwest declared a Stage II Unauthorized Overrun Entitlement period effective Wednesday until further notice for all Receiving Party customers north of the Kemmerer (WY) Compressor Station. The imbalance tolerance is 8%. Northwest said it instituted the entitlement in an effort to maintain its Jackson Prairie storage balance, which is now below 800,000 dekatherms and has been declining over the past few days. It asked customers who owe gas to the pipeline north of Kemmerer to arrange to pay back their imbalances as soon as possible.

CenterPoint notified all pool managers in its West 1, West 2, Neutral, North and South pooling areas that a “Standard OFO” will be implemented with the start of Thursday’s gas day. The OFO, which suspends transfers between certain combinations of the above pooling areas (see bulletin board for details), will remain in effect until temperatures across the CenterPoint system moderate, the pipeline said. It set a zero tolerance for noncompliance with the OFO.

Citing the persistence of single-digit temperatures in its market area, Northern Natural Gas extended a System Overrun Limitation that was initiated Sunday for all market-area zones (ABC, D and E/F) through at least Thursday.

Northwest reported Wednesday that parent firm The Williams Cos. was successful in restoring its EDI (electronic data interchange) server for Northwest Tuesday night. The server was relocated to Houston due to flooding from a water main break that occurred Monday at the Williams building in Tulsa. Customers submitting nominations using the flat file upload process were not impacted during the outage, Northwest said, and interconnecting pipelines were able to enter their confirmations directly into the Northwest Passage system or sent them via fax.

Southern Natural Gas said Tuesday it had experienced an unscheduled pipe outage on its north system west of the Tarrant Compressor Station. This outage might have some impact on interruptible service on the north mainline in Zones 2 and 3, but should not impact firm service. No date for a return to service has been determined yet.

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