Last week’s polar vortex led to record sendouts for Piedmont Natural Gas, which provides natural gas to one million residential, commercial, industrial and power generation utility customers in North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. Piedmont’s 2.41 million Dth sendout on Jan. 7 exceeded by 30% the company’s previous winter season single-day record sendout of 1.86 million Dth set on Dec. 13, 2010. Cold that clamped down on much of the country last Tuesday also prompted constraints on pipelines into New England and throughput at a central Alabama gas utility was running at 10-year record levels (see Daily GPI, Jan. 7). Piedmont said that six of its top eight single-day sendouts ever have occurred since Nov. 13, 2013.