Assist

Southwest Gas asked Wednesday that transportation customers refrain from drafting over the next three days in order to assist it in complying with upstream pipeline requests for Southwest to refrain from drafting due to scheduled maintenance. “If customer cooperation is not observed, Southwest may issue a Hold Burn to Scheduled Quantities notice, or a customer-specific OFO to encourage assistance in managing this request,” the Las Vegas-based LDC said.

Southwest Gas asked Wednesday that transportation customers refrain from drafting over the next three days in order to assist it in complying with upstream pipeline requests for Southwest to refrain from drafting due to scheduled maintenance. “If customer cooperation is not observed, Southwest may issue a Hold Burn to Scheduled Quantities notice, or a customer-specific OFO to encourage assistance in managing this request,” the Las Vegas-based LDC said.

Aided by continuing cold and Thursday morning’s storage report expectations, with an assist from Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s announcement of an ambitious reform of onshore drilling (see related story), February natural gas futures on Wednesday shot to a high of $6.034 before closing the regular session at $6.009, up 37.2 cents from Tuesday’s finish.

The continuation of very hot temperatures in much of North America, with an assist from Wednesday’s futures advance of nearly 31 cents, enabled a rebound at nearly all points Thursday. Several flat to lower points were scattered among gains that ranged from a couple of pennies to about 30 cents.

FERC on Thursday approved Trunkline LNG Co. LLC’s request to increase the peak-day vaporization capacity of its Phase I expansion to 1.5 Bcf/d from 1.3 Bcf/d. The increased vaporization will assist Trunkline LNG’s customer, BG LNG, in scheduling its liquefied natural gas (LNG) deliveries that are currently planned to arrive in the first and second quarters of this year, the FERC order said [CP02-60-007]. The proposed expansion of peak-day vaporization will not increase the number of LNG deliveries contemplated by the expansion project, or impact the construction or services that were previously authorized and currently are under way, it noted. Trunkline LNG’s Phase I expansion of its terminal near Lake Charles, LA, would more than double the sendout of capacity of the facility and expand terminal storage capacity to 9 Bcf from 6.3 Bcf. FERC approved the Phase I project in 2003. FERC in December gave Trunkline LNG a three-month extension of the deadline to complete and place in service the Phase I expansion of the Lake Charles LNG terminal (see Daily GPI, Dec. 7). It has until March 31 to finish the project.

The Bush Administration on Thursday said it released $100 million in emergency contingency funds to states, Native American tribes and territories to assist low-income customers with their energy bills this winter, along with $633 million in block grant funds to states.

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency said it has made available C$40,000 in funding to assist groups and individuals who would like to take part in the federal environmental assessment of the proposed C$4 billion Keltic Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Terminal and Marginal Wharf in Goldboro, NS.

Florida Gas Transmission (FGT) said compressor station 12 in Munson, FL, was damaged by high winds. While staff is en route to the station to assist with repairs, damage to roads and bridges have slowed down travel time. For Friday’s gas day, FGT will be scheduling volumes up to 1.5 Bcf/d into the market area. Scheduled volumes into the market area have been about 2 Bcf/d for the past couple of days. If the damage is repaired overnight, FGT will determine if scheduled volumes can be brought up above the 1.5 Bcf/d. The pipeline had an overage alert day on Thursday with a 2% tolerance. Demand on the system continues to be high, while supply remains tight. FGT continues to experienced further decline in receipt gas in Zones 2 and 3. Total system linepack is very low.

FERC Chairman Pat Wood Friday announced the appointment of William J. Cowan as Deputy Chief Administrative Law Judge at the Commission. Cowan will assist Chief Administrative Law Judge Curtis Wagner, Jr. with the administrative and managerial duties of the Office of Administrative Law Judges and serve as head of the office in the absence of the chief judge. Cowan joined FERC as an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) in early 1997 until June 2001. From July 1998 to August 2001, he served as Deputy Chief Administrative Law Judge. In late 2001 until July 2003, he served as an ALJ for the Department of Labor in Boston, Massachusetts before returning to the Commission as an ALJ in July 2003. Before that he completed 24 years of service with the New York Public Service Commission, where he was General Counsel and Chief ALJ. Cowan received his Juris Doctor degree from Northeastern University’s School of Law in Boston and his undergraduate degree in economics from the same institution.