Northwest cautioned shippers Thursday that its efforts to avoid declaring an OFO through the Kemmerer (WY) Compressor Station by using its limited storage flexibility at the Jackson Prairie and Clay Basin facilities are weakening because its Jackson Prairie inventory has been depleted to less than 1.1 Bcf. “North-flow firm scheduled volumes through Kemmerer continue to be above design capacity and Northwest is starting to see some customer drafting” north of Kemmerer, the pipeline said. To protect its Jackson Prairie account balance, Northwest said it may declare customer-specific or system entitlements for overruns for receiving parties north of Kemmerer. Northwest also asked customers who owe gas to the pipeline on their receiving party contracts to arrange paybacks of the imbalance as soon as possible. “Northwest will continue to cut alternate gas as necessary to preserve primary firm service or to move balancing gas from Clay Basin to Jackson Prairie where appropriate, and encourages customers to secure adequate supplies from Canadian supply sources, particularly Sumas, during cold periods in order to avoid entitlements and OFOs,” it said.

Southern Natural Gas said it has determined that a third party damaged its subsea connection between Main Pass 313 and the 20-inch diameter South Pass 62 Line offshore southeastern Louisiana, which caused problems requiring Southern to reduce nominations at three offshore Louisiana meters Tuesday (see Daily GPI, Dec. 20). Because of this damage, the pipeline declared force majeure Thursday and said that until further notice it will be unable to accept nominations at those meters (operators in parentheses): Viosca Knoll 989 (BP), Main Pass 313 (Chevron) and Main Pass 313 (Chevron Redelivery). Southern is formulating a repair plan.

Citing mild temperatures forecasted across their systems through the holiday weekend, affiliated pipelines Texas Eastern and Algonquin said they have no ability to absorb due-shipper imbalances. Customers should take immediate steps to resolve any existing due-shipper imbalances, they said, and neither is accepting requests to resolve due-pipe imbalances until further notice.

Gulf South has extended scheduled maintenance at the Jackson (MS) Compressor Station through Dec. 29. It had expected the work, which could reduce station capacity by as much as 125 MMcf/d, to take six days when it started Dec. 11 (see Daily GPI, Dec. 8).

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