TransCanada PipeLines plans to remove 12 older compressors fromservice in an effort to lower maintenance costs and reduce theamount of excess pipeline capacity on its system following thestart-up of the 1.325 Bcf/d Alliance Pipeline on Dec. 1.

TransCanada’s David Cornies, director of pipeline system design,said the impact on capacity will be relatively minimal at about 200MMcf/d, which compares to TransCanada’s total capacity of about 7.5Bcf/d. However, service reliability will suffer, particularly alongthe prairies section of the massive Canadian system.

“We’re really actually removing a fairly modest amount ofcapacity,” he said. “What we are looking at is retiring 12compressors that are old and obsolete and would have been retiredin the next five years anyway. So instead of retiring them four orfive years from now, we are retiring them now and we’ll be filingwith the NEB for that.

“We’re still finalizing the details, but it should take on theorder of 200 MMcf/d and that includes some other adjustments wehave to make. About 25% of that is recoverable. In order toreconfigure the system for the lower flows, we have to change someof the compressor internal components. Those can always be changedback. Of the 200 MMcf/d that is going away you could say that 150MMcf/d of that will be totally lost due to the retirements, so it’sa pretty small amount.”

However, Cornies said while the capacity loss may be small andprobably won’t even be noticed because long haul capacity undercontract is likely to be even lower, reliability could suffernoticeably under certain conditions.

“The bigger impact actually has to do with the way the rest ofthe equipment will operate. With lower flows on the system, wewon’t be able to operate all of the equipment. There’s going to besome segments that will be dormant for extended periods of time.While the equipment is still there, will it actually run if youhave an instantaneous demand for it? It would be kind ofquestionable.” He said portions of the system in Saskatchewan andManitoba would be affected most.

TransCanada’s capacity is about 7.5 Bcf/d so 200 MMcf/d is”peanuts,” said Cornies, “particular considering the actual demandwe are expecting is more on the order of 5.5 Bcf/d [after Alliancegoes into service Dec. 1]. We’ll have extra capacity. However, ifwe’re flowing along at 5.5 Bcf and Alliance has a major problem andall of a sudden that gas wants to find its way down the old route,[there could be a short-term reliability problem]. It will take usa while to turn that back on. Pipelines, like ocean liners, don’trespond instantaneously.”

Alliance is expected to take about 1 Bcf/d of supply off ofTransCanada. Alliance is test running about 600 MMcf/d currentlyand most of that is coming off of the TransCanada system because ofthe slow growth in wellhead deliverability in the Western CanadianSedimentary Basin. “Certainly it will take longer than a year andprobably longer than the next couple years” for TransCanada toregain the 1 Bcf/d of supply that Alliance is taking away, he said.”If you look at the base case for what we will be filing in theAlberta annual plan for the [Nova system], it will say it will takesix years or so to refill all the pipe capacity.”

Rocco Canonica

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