Delayed

Tennessee delayed the start of a maintenance outage on its 500 Line, previously set for today (see Daily GPI, July 27), until Monday. Tennessee anticipates restricting and sealing 40-65% of Secondary services through the end of the month at meters upstream of Station 530, and will not accept any nominations at the Lake Borgne meter Aug. 11-23.

The July Fourth holiday only delayed by a day the inevitable whiplash that gas futures typically cause on Wednesdays. Thursday opened with bang as August futures gapped about 8 cents higher at the opening bell, but the contract proceeded to do a nosedive in anticipation of another large storage refill. When the American Gas Association reported the ninth 100+ Bcf storage injection in 10 weeks (105 Bcf), futures plummeted to a new low of $3.040. However, the contract encountered surprising support there and managed to rebound to $3.136, down only 6.5 cents for the day.

After being delayed a half-hour by chanting consumers opposingrate increases in a standing-room-only hearing room, the CaliforniaPublic Utilities Commission Tuesday raised electric rates on apermanent basis by up to 40%. The CPUC also took other actionsdirecting the two of the state’s major investor-owned utilities toresume paying small independent power producers known as”qualifying facilities” (QFs) and the state Department of WaterResources for wholesale spot supplies.

Eastern prices rose about a dime or so Wednesday, in whatsources said was almost purely a delayed response to the screen’sadvance of nearly a quarter the day before. Despite a coastal stormthat left the Southeast shivering in some areas, and was movinginto the Northeast, weather was almost a total non-event for gasdemand, they said.

After a weather-delayed opening, natural gas futures checkedmostly sideways Tuesday despite the presence of some moderatelybullish weather and storage news. After carving out its narrow5.5-cent trading range during the first 30 minutes of trading, theApril contract shuffled sideways to close 2.1 cents lower at$5.315.

Alliance Pipeline conceded last week that its commercialin-service date will have to be delayed for the third time, thistime until the end of November, because of continued problems withdebris in the pipe and trouble getting the enormously complexcomponents of the system working in sync (see NGI, Sept. 11; Oct.23). The 1,900-mile project originally was supposed to be inservice Oct. 1.

Alliance Pipeline conceded yesterday that its commercial in-servicedate will have to be delayed for the third time, this time until theend of November, because of continued problems with debris in the pipeand trouble getting the enormously complex components of the systemworking in sync (see Daily GPI,Sept. 11; Oct. 23). The 1,900-mileproject originally was supposed to be in service Oct. 1.

ANR said the start of horsepower maintenance at its St. John (IN)Compressor Station, which had been scheduled for today (see Daily GPI,Oct. 25) has been delayed untilNov. 2. However, it is still projecting completion of the work forNov. 22. There is still an associated capacity reduction of 100,000Dth/d, ANR said, but it also still thinks nomination cuts may beminimized or eliminated by cooler market area weather.

The Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control finally passed down its much-delayed approval of Consolidated Edison’s (CEI) acquisition of Northeast Utilities (NU). The problem is, neither company, nor the state’s attorney general, is marking DPUC’s heavily conditional approval in the win column.