California

Southern California Gas issued a high-linepack OFO for Sunday with 10% tolerance for positive daily imbalances, but did not extend the order to Monday.

Southern California Gas did not extend a high-linepack OFO beyond Friday.

The average natural gas utility bill will drop by 8.2% this month, compared with January in northern and central California, according to Pacific Gas and Electric Co. Residential customers should pay on average $8.40 less for natural gas in February compared to January ($102.34 vs. $93.94 for February).

Following a commitment from state energy officials seeking to put more heft in natural gas-related energy efficiency programs, Southern California Gas Co. said Wednesday it will pay up to $3.7 million in rebates this year to eligible residential customers who buy more efficient gas appliances. The Sempra Energy utility said this was an increase of $1.1 million over last year’s funding.

Southern California Gas took the #1 compressor at its North Needles Station off-line Wednesday to repair broken gears and the case on the unit’s air starter. The work is causing a loss of 150 MMcf/d of border receipt capacity at Needles until further notice.

In passing up an authorized 6% rate hike for some of its customers to begin the new year, Southern California Edison Co. said its latest forecasts call for lower and stabilized wholesale natural gas costs, and that is the main driver in its assessment that its retail power rates will remain unchanged in 2007. Edison’s revenue/tariffs vice president, Akbar Jazayeri, outlined the utility’s assessment for Daily GPI in a brief interview Wednesday.

Southern California Gas, which recently exited a segment outage on Line 4000 that caused a 700 MMcf/d reduction of border receipt capacity (see Daily GPI, Dec. 7), said it will isolate the line again Friday from Newberry to Main Line Valve 12 (a total of 36 miles) to repair a leak. The will cause a one-day capacity loss of 690 MMcf/d at the Topock, North Needles and Questar border points, leaving total combined throughput not to exceed 650 MMcf/d, SoCalGas said.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s California Gas Transmission declared a high inventory systemwide operational flow order for Thursday’s gas day. The OFO has a 5% tolerance and $1/Dth penalties for noncompliance.

Southern California Gas declared a high-linepack OFO for Saturday, saying it would assess Buy-Back charges in accordance with its tariffs to customers who deliver into its system more than 110% of their actual usage on the OFO day. “Please remember that the Winter Balancing Rules are currently in effect and you must also comply with the appropriate minimum delivery requirements,” the LDC said.