Cycle

Calgary-based TransCanada has adopted the Canadians’ snowbird affection for the western United States, proposing to build a 575 MW natural gas-fired simple-cycle peaking plant in the midst of the fast-growing Phoenix metropolitan area in Arizona. If the Coolidge project becomes a reality, the facility could become the first generation plant in the state to have access to both the El Paso Natural Gas and Transwestern interstate natural gas pipelines that run east-to-west through Arizona.

Calgary-based TransCanada has adopted the western Canadian’s snowbird lure to the western United States, proposing to build a 575 MW natural gas-fired simple-cycle peaking plant in the midst of the fast-growing Phoenix metropolitan area in Arizona. If the Coolidge project becomes a reality, the facility could become the first generation plant in the state to have access to both the El Paso Natural Gas and Transwestern interstate natural gas pipelines that run east-to-west through Arizona.

Citing “an ongoing gas quality issue” at the Enterprise Meeker receipt point, Rockies Express (REX) said that effective with Evening cycle nominations for Thursday’s gas day until further notice, nominations at the point are being scheduled to zero. Even though gas flow was interrupted on the gas days of Tuesday and Wednesday, the pipeline said, customers were not impacted as REX was able to utilize linepack to make deliveries. In an update Wednesday, REX said purging and packing operations are nearly complete on Spread 4, and it expected to commence purging and packing operations this week on the rest of the system up to the ANR delivery point, subject to the receipt of required regulatory approvals. “Based upon this schedule, Rockies Express anticipates providing interim service to the ANR delivery point and points upstream” on or about Jan. 5, depending upon weather conditions, continued progress during the commissioning process and receipt of all final regulatory approvals. Currently, service from the WIC receipt point and from the Echo Springs plant is still anticipated to be as late as Jan. 12. All other receipt and delivery points on the REX system upstream of the ANR delivery point are expected to be placed into service at the same time as the mainline system. Nominations of REX’s Overthrust capacity will be accepted effective Jan. 1 for service to Zone 1 delivery points and to Cheyenne HUB. REX continues to expect that full service on its system to Panhandle Eastern in Audrain County, MO, will be available in early February.

Southern California Gas waited until early Wednesday to declare a high-linepack OFO on the Intraday 1 nominations cycle for Wednesday’s gas day. The OFO was kept in place through at least Thursday. Buy-Back charges in accordance with SoCalGas rules and tariffs will be assessed to customers who deliver more than 110% of their actual gas usage into the distributor’s system on the OFO day.

Early Wednesday morning Southern California Gas declared a high-linepack OFO on the Intraday 1 nominations cycle for that day, saying it would assess Buy-Back charges in accordance with its rules and tariffs to customers who delivered into the SoCalGas system more than 110% of their actual gas usage on the OFO day. The OFO will remain in effect through at least Thursday, the LDC said.

The average full-cycle cost of new gas supply in Western Canada has more than doubled since 2000 to C$7.90/Mcf including a return on producers’ investment, significantly higher than the C$6.25/Mcf received by producers at the Alberta Gas Plant Gate during the first three quarters of 2007, according to Calgary-based Ziff Energy Group.

The average full-cycle cost of new gas supply in Western Canada has more than doubled since 2000 to C$7.90/Mcf including a return on producers’ investment, significantly higher than the C$6.25/Mcf received by producers at the Alberta Gas Plant Gate during the first three quarters of 2007, according to Calgary-based Ziff Energy Group.

Competitive Power Ventures (CPV) Wednesday unveiled plans to build a 600 MW natural gas-fired combined-cycle power plant in Charles County, MD, less than 20 miles south of Washington, DC — the cleanest generation facilities ever built in the region, the company said.

Caledonia Energy Partners LLC placed into service last Tuesday a high-deliverability, multi-cycle storage field in northeast Mississippi with capacity to store 11.7 Bcf of working gas. The start-up came a day after FERC gave the go-ahead for the storage facility, which originally was a nearly depleted natural gas reservoir.