Enbridge reported Tuesday that it expects total gas flows on its five offshore Gulf of Mexico pipeline corridors to come close to pre-Hurricane Katrina levels of 2.7 Bcf/d by the end of the year, compared to only about 600 MMcf/d Tuesday (200 MMcf/d of which is from storage on Destin).

The only thing standing in the way of a return to full service, said Enbridge’s Doug Krenz, vice president of transportation, is the damage to Shell’s Mars platform, which had its drilling platform toppled by Katrina. On an investors conference call Tuesday, Krenz told analysts that he believes Mars, which is connected to the Mississippi Canyon pipeline, will be down until sometime in the second half of next year. Mars was producing 150-170 MMcf/d of gas and 150,000 bbl/d of oil prior to Katrina.

Krenz expects Shell’s Mensa and Ursa facilities, which also are on Mississippi Canyon, back in service in November. The other major setback will be BP’s Thunder Horse semisubmersible production facility, which was supposed to add 200 MMcf/d of supply in the second half of 2005 to Mississippi Canyon. Thunder Horse was damaged by Hurricane Dennis and could be down until the second half of 2006. BP’s deepwater Atlantis platform, which was expected to come online in the fourth quarter, won’t provide Mississippi Canyon with its 150 MMcf/d until sometime in the first quarter, Krenz said.

Although it found no significant damage to its pipeline systems and other facilities, Enbridge Inc. and Enbridge Energy Partners LP said on Monday that clean-up and inspections following Hurricane Rita will be costly and may take several weeks or longer on the UTOS and Stingray facilities, among others. Enbridge Inc. expects a total net earnings impact of C$5 million (US$4.29 million), while Energy Partners expects a C$2 million (US$1.72 million) reduction in net income (see Daily GPI, Oct. 4).

Enbridge Inc. found “no material incremental damage from Hurricane Rita” to its five major offshore pipeline corridors, which were flowing about 2.7 Bcf/d prior to Katrina: Mississippi Canyon (capacity 800 MMcf/d)), Garden Banks (1 Bcf/d, plus 250 MMcf/d on Magnolia), Green Canyon (includes Nautilus, 600 MMcf/d; Manta Ray, 800 MMcf/d; and Cleopatra, 500 MMcf/d), Stingray (1,120 MMcf/d, plus 275 MMcf/d on Triton) and Destin (1.2 Bcf/d) (see Daily GPI, Sept. 12).

However, four of the corridors were not receiving any gas production on Tuesday — Destin was back up to about 390 MMcf/d. And the Stingray system may be down for several months for repairs of minor equipment damage and damage to downstream processing, i.e., Williams’ Cameron Meadows gas processing plant (500 MMcf/d) near Johnson’s Bayou. The Mississippi Canyon system (800 MMcf/d) also could be down much longer because of damage to Dynegy’s Venice gas processing plant.

Krenz said the Green Canyon pipeline corridor will be coming back up this week as will the Garden Banks pipeline system. “We may get some short-term benefits on Garden Banks because one of the competing pipelines has had pipeline damage so we will be transporting some incremental gas there.”

He said the majority of the damage sustained by Enbridge’s facilities was to onshore operations from storm surges that hit the beaches at Venice and at Stingray. “We estimate that the surge at Venice was probably 12 to 20 feet. The surge at Stingray was probably more in the [area] of five feet. While we have very little if any damage to our offshore facilities, we do have controls and electrical equipment that need to be repaired at those beach facilities. We think we can get that repaired in a 30- to 45-day time frame.” He predicted that Stingray could be ready to operate by the end of November. But whether it can be brought back to full operations at that point may depend on the status of Cameron Meadows.

©Copyright 2005Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news reportmay not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in anyform, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.