The wait for the Independence Hub natural gas deepwater production platform in the Gulf of Mexico to come back on-line got a little longer Tuesday night as Enterprise Products Partners LP announced that it was revising the restart date from “mid-May” to the “first half of June,” provided there are no “unexpected weather issues.”

When the hub went off-line on April 8 due to a leak on the associated Independence Trail pipeline, the original repair estimate was “one to four weeks” (see Daily GPI, April 10a). Anadarko Petroleum Corp., which operates the hub, sought to steady its investors late Tuesday by reaffirming its full-year production guidance for 2008.

The news is of great interest to natural gas markets. With the current 1,436 Bcf storage level currently sitting 284 Bcf below last year at this time and 11 Bcf below the five-year average, some futures traders — who have been monitoring the situation closely — have expressed concern that extended outages such as the one at the Independence Hub could make it more difficult to refill inventories ahead of this winter (see Daily GPI, April 28; April 24; April 14; April 10b; April 10c). The current outage is suspending the production of approximately 900 MMcf/d. June natural gas futures recorded an overnight Tuesday high for the move of $11.794 before closing out Wednesday’s regular session at $11.598, up 17.6 cents from Tuesday’s regular session close (see related story).

Enterprise, which owns 80% of the production platform and 100% of the pipeline, said late Tuesday that the repair is taking longer than expected due to the unforeseen need to machine parts. The original leak in the pipeline appeared to be originating from a stainless steel O-ring located on the top flange of the flex joint in approximately 85 feet of water. The flex joint assembly connects the export pipeline to the platform. The initial repair work was to tighten the bolts around the flange adjacent to the O-ring, repressure the pipeline and inspect for leaks. While greatly reduced, there was still a small leak that required proceeding with a second step in the repair process, which is to replace the O-ring.

Enterprise explained that in order to perform this work, a specialty plug is temporarily installed to isolate the flex joint from the pipeline while the O-ring is being replaced. “While attempting to set this plug, a restriction in the interior diameter of a 20-inch tee fitting on the platform was encountered that prevented the plug from being installed,” the company said. “The tee has been removed from the platform and is currently being machined to increase the inside diameter and eliminate the restriction. Upon completion of the machining, the tee will be reinstalled on the hub and the repair process will continue.”

Sparked by the repair delay announcement, Anadarko Petroleum Corp. late Tuesday reaffirmed its full-year production guidance at 207 million to 212 million boe.

“We support the repair process described by Enterprise,” Anadarko CEO Jim Hackett said. “Assuming production can be resumed at Independence Hub in the first half of June, we still expect to be within the range of our full-year production guidance. We maintain production upside from better than anticipated results in our Rockies program, and Independence Hub also surpassed anticipated run rates throughout the first quarter. Our cash flow remains strong and is more than sufficient to continue funding our capital program.”

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