Available

Affiliates of El Paso Energy, Enron, Duke Energy and Pacific Gas& Electric appear to have picked up the largest shares of the1.2 Bcf/d of available space on El Paso Natural Gas lines toSouthern California points in the latest capacity auction.

Because El Paso’s Eunice Natural Gas Processing Plant justupstream of the TGT compressor station in Acadia, LA, is not fullyprocessing the gas stream available this winter (like others inSouth Louisiana), TGT said it is having operational problems due todownstream gas having excessive liquids. It notified customers thatgas received at any point, including points upstream of the EunicePlant, must not have a hydrocarbon dewpoint in excess of 10 degreesFahrenheit. Receipts not meeting that specification may be rejectedin whole or partially, TGT said.

Honeoye Storage is holding a open season for firm storage servicefor up to five years at its Ontario County, NY facility. Up to 1,471MDth is available, starting as early as April, with a maximuminjection rate of 20,000 Dth/d and a withdrawal rate of 12,500Dth/d. The open season runs through Feb. 16. The facility connectswith Tennessee Gas and New York State Electric & Gas. Customersmake their own transportation arrangements. Storage service firstbegan at Honeoye, just south of Rochester, NY, in 1975 and five of itsoriginal customers continue to receive 4,293 MDth of service. TheHoneoye facility is owned by affiliates of KeySpan Energy,Consolidated Edison of New York, and its three developers, DaveDonohue, Dick Norman and Jacek Makowski. Check www.honeoye-gas-storage.com or call Donohue at 617-536-0202.

In what has to be a wilder ride than anything available atDisneyland’s soon-to-open new “California Experience,” theelectricity high jinx caromed all over the nation’s most populousstate last week. It included: rolling blackouts through northernCalifornia; enactment of crisis legislation, the most immediate ofwhich provides $400 million to the state water resources agency soit can buy bulk power for California; a last minute temporaryrestraining order by the California Public Utilities Commissionrequiring Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edisonto continue supplying power to all their customers; variousfinancial downgradings and defaults; and suggestions for compromiseactions by outgoing FERC Chairman James Hoecker.

With today’s electricity demand expanding beyond the reach ofavailable supply, and nationwide electric deregulation effortsproviding inconsistent results, distributed power just may be thenext big thing, according to Bear Stearns analyst Robert Winters.

With today’s electricity demand expanding beyond the reach ofavailable supply, and nationwide electric deregulation effortsproviding inconsistent results, distributed power just may be thenext big thing, according to Bear Stearns analyst Robert Winters.

National Fuel Gas Supply Corp. and Empire State Pipelinereported yesterday that natural gas service is available at a newpipeline interconnection located in Pendelton, NY, in NiagaraCounty. The interconnection includes four miles of 16-inch pipe aswell as regulation and flow control facilities designed totransport up to 150 MMcf/d onto National Fuel’s Line X. The systemwill allow gas supply from Canada at the Chippawa import point toflow to the Buffalo, NY market as well as to National Fuel’sinterconnects with Tennessee Gas Pipeline at East Aurora, NY, andEllisburg, PA; Dominion Transmission at Ellisburg; andTranscontinental Pipeline and Texas Eastern Pipeline at Leidy, PA.Shippers with interest in capacity from Chippawa to the newinterconnect with National Fuel at Pendleton can call SharonAngle-Karry with Empire at 713-418-4105, or shippers with interestin capacity on National Fuel from the new interconnect with Empirecan call George Linder with National Fuel at 716-857-7105.

Construction is complete, and Transwestern Pipeline Co. hasincreased its available capacity to California by 15%, a moveproviding expansion shippers with opportunities to move incrementalvolumes from the San Juan and Permian Basins to the Californiaborder. The $12 million project was approved by FERC in mid-January(see NGI, Jan. 17, 2000).

Construction is complete, and Transwestern Pipeline Co. hasincreased its available capacity to California by 15%, a moveproviding expansion shippers with opportunities to move incrementalvolumes from the San Juan and Permian Basins to the Californiaborder. The $12 million project was approved by FERC in mid-January(see Daily GPI, Jan. 13, 2000).