The recent appellate court ruling declaring the existing five-year Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) leasing plan for 2007-2012 to be “legally defective” has called into question the Interior Department leases issued for oil and natural gas development in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska under the plan, said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar Wednesday.
Declaring
Articles from Declaring
Transportation Notes
Effective Friday until further notice, Northwest is declaring a Stage II (8% tolerance) Overrun Entitlement for all receiving parties north of the Kemmerer (WY) Compressor Station. Northwest also gave customers notice of a potential OFO affecting Kemmerer throughput. “At this time, Northwest must declare an entitlement due to its limited storage flexibility to support customer drafting,” the pipeline said. “As reported on [the] Northwest website, the Jackson Prairie storage level is less than 5 Bcf. Based on this storage level, the deliverability capacity is approximately 160,000 Dth/day.” Customers’ post-Intraday 2 nomination requests will be rejected if they fail to call and get approval from Gas Control during the night, Northwest added. Primary scheduled quantities through Kemmerer have increased in recent days to exceed the station’s operational available capacity of 690,000 Dth/d, it said, asking shippers to voluntarily reduce their scheduled volumes through Kemmerer. See the bulletin board for further details.
FERC Splits the Baby — Transco Is Transmission, Jupiter Gathering
Acting on remands from two separate appellate courts, FERC last Thursday upheld a prior order declaring part of Transcontinental Gas Pipeline’s (Transco) pipeline network located onshore and offshore Louisiana to be transmission in nature and thus subject to agency jurisdiction, but it reversed itself on Jupiter Energy Corp. and found its small pipeline offshore Louisiana to be exempt gathering.
FERC Splits the Baby — Transco Is Transmission, Jupiter Gathering
Acting on remands from two separate appellate courts, FERC Thursday upheld a prior order declaring part of Transcontinental Gas Pipeline’s (Transco) pipeline network located onshore and offshore Louisiana to be transmission in nature and thus subject to agency jurisdiction, but it reversed itself on Jupiter Energy Corp. and found its small pipeline offshore Louisiana to be exempt gathering.
Transportation Notes
Pacific Gas & Electric did not extend a customer-specific low-inventory OFO beyond Thursday.
Mitsubishi, ConocoPhillips to Battle for Long Beach LNG Site
With its senior officers declaring they will win the fight, the sponsors of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal in Long Beach (CA) harbor fired shots in three different directions Thursday — in a state court, at city hall and in the FERC corridors in Washington, DC. In the end, Sound Energy Solutions (SES) expects to be vindicated before the Port of Long Beach Harbor Commission.
Transportation Notes
El Paso set an imbalance tolerance of 10% in declaring a systemwide Strained Operating Condition Tuesday. “Due to a combination of supply underperformance and takes in excess of scheduled quantities, linepack is declining at a rate that is not sustainable,” the pipeline said, adding that its Washington Ranch storage facility was on maximum withdrawal. “Performance caps are being applied to supplies that are flowing at less than scheduled quantities. Customers are strongly encouraged to review their transport to ensure that their takes are in balance with their supplies and to ensure their scheduled supplies are performing as expected. If the situation does not improve, the imbalance tolerance will be reduced and a Critical Operating Condition could be declared,” El Paso said.
Transportation Notes
Northwest cautioned shippers Thursday that its efforts to avoid declaring an OFO through the Kemmerer (WY) Compressor Station by using its limited storage flexibility at the Jackson Prairie and Clay Basin facilities are weakening because its Jackson Prairie inventory has been depleted to less than 1.1 Bcf. “North-flow firm scheduled volumes through Kemmerer continue to be above design capacity and Northwest is starting to see some customer drafting” north of Kemmerer, the pipeline said. To protect its Jackson Prairie account balance, Northwest said it may declare customer-specific or system entitlements for overruns for receiving parties north of Kemmerer. Northwest also asked customers who owe gas to the pipeline on their receiving party contracts to arrange paybacks of the imbalance as soon as possible. “Northwest will continue to cut alternate gas as necessary to preserve primary firm service or to move balancing gas from Clay Basin to Jackson Prairie where appropriate, and encourages customers to secure adequate supplies from Canadian supply sources, particularly Sumas, during cold periods in order to avoid entitlements and OFOs,” it said.
Transportation Notes
MRT is declaring a System Protection Warning, effective Thursday until further notice, that sets these conditions: MRT will not schedule any Main Line IT or AOR (Authorized Overrun) volumes for delivery north of Glendale, AR; and firm volumes will be limited to their primary direction of flow. To avoid OFOs, shippers who were relying on Main Line IT and/or AOR volumes were encouraged to resource supply to MRT’s East Line, where capacity is available, or reduce applicable delivery volumes.
Transportation Notes
El Paso set an imbalance tolerance of 4% in declaring a systemwide Strained Operating Condition Thursday. “Underperforming supplies in combination with takes that exceed scheduled quantities have significantly reduced linepack,” the pipeline said, adding that its Washington Ranch Storage facility is at maximum withdrawal rates. El Paso said it will place performance caps on nonperforming supplies, and will declare a Critical Operating Condition if the situation does not improve.