Discharge

A bill that would ban hydraulic fracturing (fracking) wastewater imports, storage, treatment, discharge or disposal generated in other states has been introduced in the Maryland General Assembly.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is looking for ways to get the natural gas industry to use polluted discharge from old mines.

Louisiana’s efforts to guide natural gas drillers to alternative water sources and to track the sources of water used in drilling operations are helping to protect groundwater resources in the state’s northwestern Haynesville Shale area, according to a report from the Louisiana Ground Water Resources Program (LGWRP).

Aquila Inc. took a major step in rebuilding last week, reaching agreement with two sureties to discharge the guarantees of four prepaid natural gas supply contracts. Release from the supply contracts, which represent 92% of Aquila’s prepaid gas obligations, lifts a heavy burden off of the Kansas City-based utility as it works to exit its unregulated businesses.

Aquila Inc. took a major step in its “repositioning” efforts on Monday, reaching agreement with two sureties to discharge the guarantees of four prepaid natural gas supply contracts. Release from the supply contracts, which represent 92% of Aquila’s prepaid gas obligations, lifts a heavy burden off of the Kansas City-based utility as it works to exit its unregulated businesses.

In a discharge of pent-up selling that had welled up over the holiday weekend, natural gas futures tumbled lower Tuesday in sympathy with the latest round of bearish weather forecasts. Lower prices in the Monday-night Access trading session set the stage and the market responded by gapping lower when regular-outcry trading resumed Tuesday morning.

Texas Eastern said the investigation and repair of the pipeline break at the discharge of the French Lick station in Indiana continues. Until completion of the investigation and repair, receipts on the 24-inch diameter line will be restricted. For Oct. 17, it was not necessary to restrict nominations for gas leaving the constrained area due to reductions in requested volumes. However, Tetco said no incremental supply nominations can be accepted.

Texas Eastern (Tetco) said Friday it is continuing work on repairing a leak on the M1 24-inch line at the discharge of Oran (MO) Compressor Station under the Mississippi River. The leak was discovered in late February (see Daily GPI, Feb. 24). A previously posted reduction to 70% of capacity at Oran is expected to continue through the end of this winter season, upon which Tetco anticipates a complete shutdown of the line to complete the repairs. The duration of this outage has not been determined, but is expected to be at least one month. Although initial restrictions will be limited to meters downstream of the Longview (TX) Compressor Station on the 24-inch line in zones East Texas and M1, “operating conditions may require restriction of ETX meters upstream of Longview from time to time,” the pipeline said.

Texas Eastern will replace a main line valve at the discharge ofthe Angleton Compressor Station south of Houston today andThursday, causing the shut-in of the Reliant HL&P,Amoco-Spencer Highway and Big Three Industries meters. The projectpreviously had been scheduled to start Monday, June 5. Due tovolumes currently scheduled in the South Texas/East Texas Zones,the pipeline will not accept any due-pipe nominations or supplylength in TABS-1 pools during this work.