Evening

Southern California Gas declared an OFO for the Evening Cycle of Wednesday.

The bears didn’t waste much time Tuesday evening. Minutes after Claudette was downgraded to a tropical storm, traders took the bull by the horns and were able to steer prices in overnight Access trading below key technical and psychological support at $5.00. When the regular, open-outcry session opened Wednesday morning, there was little question which direction prices were headed.

Northern Natural Gas was able to restore some compression Thursday evening at the Bushton (KS) Compressor Station in areas away from Building 3, which was damaged in an explosion and fire Tuesday morning (see Daily GPI, April 2), a spokesman said Friday. The station began accepting a portion of the normal outlet gas from an upstream Oneok processing plant and possibly would be able to handle full plant volumes again by Friday night, he said.

An explosion rocked a portion of Colorado Interstate Gas Co.’s mainline in Colorado Sunday evening, but it did not interrupt natural gas deliveries to the region or cause any injuries, a spokesman for the pipeline said Monday.

A pigging operation on Matagorda Offshore Pipeline System from Wednesday evening through Friday resulted in very high liquid levels, and thus scheduled volumes from MOPS were reduced to zero for the gas days of Friday through Sunday. The action cut deliveries of about 100,000 MMBtu/d into South Texas interconnects with Florida Gas Transmission, Gulf South and Tejas Gas Pipeline, MOPS operator Northern Natural Gas said.

The weather forecasters say Lilli, a category 4 as of Wednesday evening, could rival Andrew, a category 5 hurricane in 1992 that devastated a wide swath of Florida before cutting across the Gulf of Mexico, toppling 34 oil and gas platforms, leaving 28 leaning, and causing over a billion dollars in damage, not counting the loss of production revenue (see NGI’s storm chronicle — located under special reports on intelligencepress.com).

Tropical Depression Ten was churning south of Jamaica Tuesday evening and was poised to become a Tropical Storm in the next 24 hours, according to the National Hurricane Center. The storm contributed to a sharp rise in futures prices Tuesday — the October contract soared to a high of $3.69 — but failed to produce much of an effect on cash prices until very late trading. Most cash points were flat to up or down a few cents on average.

Trunkline warned Friday evening that based on system operations and continuing weather conditions, it no longer could absorb excess receipts upstream of Centerville in the East Louisiana pool. It issued a critical system warning for the pool that remains in effect until further notice. If the excess receipts continue, an OFO with 2% tolerance and $25/Dth penalties may become necessary, Trunkline said.

Northern Border said “concurrent unplanned compressor station outages upstream of Ventura” Monday evening prompted it to place a firm-only scheduling restriction on the 42-inch pipeline segment (Monchy/Port of Morgan to Ventura) for the gas days of Wednesday and today. Gas Control will re-evaluate conditions this morning to determine if the constraint will be lifted Friday.