Condition

CIG declared a Strained Operating Condition Monday, citing the “extremely cold weather” being experienced in its market area. The pipeline said it has “very limited ability to handle imbalances caused by variations between scheduled receipts and deliveries and actual gas flow.” See the bulletin board for details on SOC compliance. CIG added that it does not anticipate the need for an OFO “as long as receipt shortage or delivery overage imbalances do not occur.”

CIG declared a Strained Operating Condition (SOC) that took effect Wednesday until further notice. The pipeline said its usual system flexibility is not available as a result of supplies in excess of markets north of the Springfield (CO) Compressor Station, the anticipated continuation of lower market requirements and the resulting high demand for storage injections. For the duration of the SOC, CIG will be unable to approve payback nominations to the pipeline or to accept any storage injection overrun requests. All interruptible storage shippers will be barred from nominating injections to their accounts. Finally, Auto Park and Loan rates will be raised to the maximum.

While U.S. power markets remain in “fair to good condition,” FERC’s Office of Market Oversight and Investigations (OMI) remains concerned about “continued deterioration in the financial health of market players,” and what that is doing to market liquidity, OMI Chief Bill Hederman said last Wednesday.

Citing the “extremely cold weather” forecast for its market area, CIG declared a Strained Operating Condition that took effect Friday until further notice. The pipeline anticipated “very limited ability to handle imbalances caused by variations between scheduled receipts and deliveries and actual gas flow,” especially during the weather conditions that had been predicted for Friday and Saturday. As of Friday CIG did not anticipate any need to issue an OFO as long as receipt shortage or delivery overage imbalances did not occur.

CIG declared a force majeure condition Friday at its Elk Basin Compressor Station located on the Wind River Lateral in Park County, WY. A compressor engine had to be taken out of service for repairs. CIG estimates that the outage will last at least 30 days. It anticipates being able to flow 47,000 Dth/d through the station, but said any impact to service will depend on any given day’s nominations.

Because of market area rain that eased a low-linepack condition, Florida Gas Transmission lifted Wednesday an Overage Alert Day notice that had declared Monday. An El Paso low-linepack OFO remained in effect.

CIG said the Strained Operating Condition it had declared for the gas days of Wednesday and Thursday, which was caused by power outages related to blizzard conditions, was lifted Thursday.

Exxon Mobil satisfied another condition required by the FederalTrade Commission in its approval of the merger of the two companiesby selling Mobil Alaska Pipeline’s 3% interest in the Trans AlaskaPipeline System to a unit of The Williams Companies, Inc. Terms ofthe sale were not disclosed. ExxonMobil Pipeline will retain its20% interest in the 800-mile pipeline system, which transports onemillion barrels per day of crude oil from Prudhoe Bay on thestate’s North Slope to the Port of Valdez in the south. The stakeadds to Williams’ presence in Alaska, which currently includes apetroleum refinery in North Pole that receives crude oil from theTrans Alaska Pipeline System, a distribution terminal at the Portof Anchorage, 28 retail petroleum convenience stores and aninterest in an air cargo transfer facility at AnchorageInternational Airport.

Southern California Edison called on FERC last week to approve”without condition or modification” an agreement under which ElPaso Natural Gas would pay the California electric utility $32million and make other concessions to forestall the collapse of its1996 capacity-turnback settlement. The deal, if approved by FERC,would put an end to a four-year legal battle by Edison, the only ElPaso customer to object to the settlement in its entirety. It also”clears the way” for Commission approval of the settlement.