Pogo Producing has filed a request with FERC for emergency pipeline capacity allocation on Southern Natural Gas’ offshore Gulf of Mexico pipelines upstream of the Toca, LA, gas processing plant, part of which is scheduled to be taken down in August for upgrades. Pogo, a captive producer with about 52 MMcf/d of production behind the Toca plant, said the plant shutdown could lead to the shut-in of 250 MMcf/d of gas production and some oil production.

It is requesting that FERC, in consultation with the Department of Energy under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, direct Southern to allocate receipt point capacity on offshore pipelines upstream of Toca for two to four weeks beginning Aug 1 to avoid any production shut-ins while Enterprise Operating Partners works on the turbines of Toca Unit 1.

Because of the Toca shutdown, Southern Natural conducted a study to examine projected hydrocarbon liquids fallout and determined that it needed to impose stricter hydrocarbon dew point limits at its Enterprise, MS, monitoring point downstream of the Toca plant. To reduce the hydrocarbon dew point at Enterprise, Southern projected that cuts of 292 MMcf/d of gas would be needed, falling almost entirely on the points upstream of the Toca plant. In order to ensure that shippers conform to the new dew point standards, Southern has imposed volume restrictions at certain locations with steep penalties of $15/Dth for overdeliveries.

Some producers upstream of Toca have alternative transportation options, and Southern believes no curtailments would be necessary if plans were made to reroute gas. However, Pogo said Southern does not have the authority under its tariff to force gas to be diverted onto the Viosca Knoll Gathering System and Mississippi Canyon Pipeline systems upstream of the Toca plant.

As a result, it needs FERC to step in and do the job. Otherwise producers who are captive behind Toca could have to shut in their gas.

“It has to happen pretty quickly,” said Ron McGregor, senior vice president of sales at Pogo. “This has a tremendous impact on Pogo, and we didn’t feel like we could wait around until Aug. 1 to find out” if other producers did take their gas on an alternate transportation route.

“It’s a one time thing to ensure that nobody is shut in when there are other avenues to prevent that shut in,” he said. “We’re not pointing fingers at anyone. This is not a grand scheme against Pogo. It’s just where we find ourselves, and what we are trying to do is to make sure that gas and oil flows when there’s no need for it to be shut in.”

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