Kern River noted that temperatures continue to be forecast as much colder than normal in all of its supply and market areas for the Jan. 11-15 period. “In the event physical supply is impacted due to the cold weather and receipt point operators are unable to delivery their scheduled quantity, Kern River will likely request that the receipt point operator reduce their confirmation to match their physical deliveries to Kern River,” the pipeline said Wednesday. “If a shipper’s nominations are reduced by a receipt point operator, that shipper should be prepared to find alternate supply. In the event a shipper is unable to find alternate supply, that shipper’s affected market will be expected to take physical delivery equal to their scheduled quantity.”

Westcoast said its system condition continues to remain “red” due to low linepack, and McMahon Plant shippers should be aware that due to extreme temperatures in the Fort St. John area, there is currently approximately 60 MMcf of residue gas off the system and the plant is flowing 470 MMcf/d. “Shippers at McMahon should continue to be cautious for the weekend,” Westcoast said Thursday.

“Market-area temperatures along the Transco system for the upcoming weekend are again forecasted to be significantly above normal,” the pipeline said Thursday. As a result, Transco will not allow any due-pipeline imbalance makeup nominations until further notice and is encouraging shippers with negative imbalances to resolve them as soon as possible. Pool tolerances will remain at 1% and a restriction on incremental Park quantities or the payback of any Loans under Rate Schedule PAL will continue, Transco said. It also reinstituted a ban on excess storage injection nominations under Rate Schedules GSS, WSS and WSS-OA that had been lifted last month (see Daily GPI, Dec. 19, 2006).

Pacific Gas & Electric said its California Gas Transmission unit expects systemwide temperatures to hover around the Cold Winter Day (CWD) criterion Friday through Sunday, and that it is crucial for customers balance their supply and demand during this time. CWD is a statistical planning criterion that includes a system-weighted mean temperature of 38 degrees F and is used to ensure reliable gas service, the utility explained. Between Thursday and Friday, “California Gas Transmission expects a drop of about 10 degrees in our system composite temperature, reaching an unusual low on Saturday and warming slightly on Sunday,” PG&E said. It does not anticipate any gas curtailments, primarily due to the likelihood that the coldest temperatures will occur Saturday morning, which is generally a time of lower demand. “However, each shipper’s balancing efforts are critical for smooth pipeline operations,” it said.

A leak was discovered on NGPL‘s 8-inch diameter lateral in Wheeler County, TX. This leak and needed repairs will not impact transport scheduling in Segment 6 of the MidContinent Zone, NGPL said, but the lateral’s Kaiser-Francis-Scott #1-Wheeler point became unavailable Thursday until further notice.

Questar said repairs have been completed at Greasewood Compressor Station and as a result, capacity to a TransColorado interconnect (MAP 297) were restored 45,000 Dth/d effective with Cycle 3 nominations Thursday. Late last week Questar had expected the repairs, which required several delays, to last until Friday (see Daily GPI, Jan. 9).

Referring to a Dec. 21 posting about its subsea connection between Main Pass 313 and the 20-inch diameter South Pass 62 Line being damaged by a third party (see Daily GPI, Dec. 22, 2006), Southern Natural Gas said Thursday that based on the best information available at this time, the connection will be repaired and returned to service sometime in mid to late May. Due to the third-party damage, Southern is unable to accept nominations from three offshore receipt points. The in-service date is dependent on several factors, including availability of materials and equipment, weather conditions and availability of contractors, the pipeline said.

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