Cause

Lightning was suspected as the cause of a 50-minute power outage Wednesday afternoon that knocked out power to nearly half a million people on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and in the western part of the Bronx, Consolidated Edison Co. of New York (ConEd) said last week. The utility also was blitzed by more outages in other parts of the city following severe thunderstorms later Wednesday night.

Nonbinding interest in a recently completed open season may cause the sponsors of a proposed new intrastate transmission pipeline in Oregon to increase its maximum capacity from 1 Bcf/d to 1.5 Bcf/d, according to a senior executive at PG&E Corp. speaking last Thursday on a first quarter earnings conference call.

Nonbinding interest in a recently completed open season may cause the sponsors of a proposed new intrastate transmission pipeline in Oregon to increase its maximum capacity from 1 Bcf/d to 1.5 Bcf/d, according to a senior executive at PG&E Corp. speaking Thursday on a first quarter earnings conference call.

While it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact cause — wellhead freeze-offs or insufficient data — U.S. natural gas production has dropped dramatically, to post-Katrina levels, at a time when cold weather across the country has driven demand to a peak 40% above the average, Denver-based consulting firm Bentek Energy reported Friday. The company — one of only a few firms that is collecting gas pipeline flow data nationwide — said data show a 5.3% decline in domestic production occurred over a one-week period between Jan. 10 and Jan. 17.

While it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact cause — wellhead freeze-offs or insufficient data — U.S. natural gas production has dropped dramatically, to post-Katrina levels, at a time when cold weather across the country has driven demand to a peak 40% above the average, Denver-based consulting firm Bentek Energy reported Friday.

Tennessee postponed for a second time the installation of a pig launcher and receiver on the 334A-100 Line north of New York City, which will cause a suspension of physical flow at the Con Ed White Plains meter. The project, which had been rescheduled for May 16-30 earlier this month (see Daily GPI, May 10), is now set for May 23-June 6, Tennessee said.

While Hurricane Katrina was one of the most destructive natural gas disasters to strike the United States, it did not cause the worst-case type of scenarios with respect to natural gas production, according to FERC’s Office of Market Oversight and Investigations (OMOI).

The long-simmering investigation over allegations that affiliates of Peoples Energy Corp. and Enron Corp. conspired to cause People’s regulated utility, People’s Gas, to buy higher-priced gas for Chicago area consumers hit the courts last Monday in separate lawsuits filed by the state of Illinois and the City of Chicago against Peoples in the Circuit Court of Cook County.

The long-simmering investigation over allegations that affiliates of Peoples Energy Corp. and Enron Corp. conspired to cause People’s regulated utility, People’s Gas, to buy higher-priced gas for Chicago area consumers hit the courts Monday in separate lawsuits filed by the state of Illinois and the City of Chicago against Peoples in the Circuit Court of Cook County.