Emergency

Manta Ray Offshore Gathering Co. LLC began providing emergency natural gas transportation services to offshore deepwater producers May 18, the company said in a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) on Monday issued an interim final rule that will allow it to issue emergency orders on oil and natural gas pipelines, satisfying a requirement from a comprehensive pipeline safety bill enacted last summer.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has extended until Aug. 27 the limit on emergency transactions by Manta Ray Offshore Gathering Co. LLC(MROG), which has been using its gathering system as an intermediate link in the delivery of natural gas within federal waters offshore Louisiana for nearly four months. On March 1, MROG notified FERC that on Feb. 29 it had initiated the emergency transportation activity to continue the flow of offshore deepwater gas produced in association with oil by Chevron U.S.A. Inc., BHP Billiton Petroleum (Deepwater) Inc.and ExxonMobil Gas & Power Marketingduring an outage by Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co. LLC(Transco). The need for emergency service became effective Feb. 29 when Transco posted an exception to its resumption of Southeast Louisiana Crossover flow for producers located upstream of its production platform in South Timbalier Block 300. The production would flow on MROG’s gathering system as an alternate transportation route while platform modifications are undertaken, MROG said. MROG filed a notice April 14 to extend the action through June 28, and on June 16 filed a petition seeking a waiver in order to continue the emergency transportation arrangement until Aug. 27.

California regulators set new emergency requirements for natural gas and oil storage operations in the state — including requirements for testing, inspections and monitoring of all wells — in response to an emergency declaration by Gov. Jerry Brown over the Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) Aliso Canyon storage well leak earlier this year.

Responding to Gov. Jerry Brown’s mandate amid heightened safety concerns about the nearly three-month-old Aliso Canyon well leak, California regulators on Friday served notice of issuing emergency natural gas storage regulations.

Residents living in the area adjacent to the Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) underground natural gas storage field, where a two-month-old leak has forced many to relocate, have asked state oil and gas regulators to shut down the facility.

Regulators with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) were working on a response to a new series of earthquakes to hit the state, including a 4.3-magnitude temblor that struck near Edmond on Tuesday, but winter storms and flooding were the most immediate concern.

State and local officials said an explosion early Tuesday at Chevron Appalachia LLC’s Lanco 7H well in Greene County, PA, was one of the worst the state has seen in modern history and the largest accident yet at an unconventional well in the state.

Close to 40% of all of the natural gas produced in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico had been shut in as of Friday, along with nearly half of the oil produced every day.