Excess

The West may have an excess of interstate natural gas pipeline capacity by the end of this year, and PG&E Gas Transmission Northwest (GTN) is retrenching on its 2003 expansion plans in the Pacific Northwest, according to Peter Lund, vice president of market development at the pipeline. In an interview with NGI, Lund said PG&E’s pipeline expansions, the new intrastate pipeline capacity additions, Kern River Gas Transmission’s 2003 expansion and multiple proposed LNG import terminals will dramatically alter the gas market in the West in the next few years.

The West may have an excess of interstate natural gas pipeline capacity by the end of this year, and PG&E Gas Transmission Northwest (GTN) is retrenching on its 2003 expansion plans in the Pacific Northwest, according to Peter Lund, vice president of market development at the pipeline. In an interview with NGI, Lund said PG&E’s pipeline expansions, the new intrastate pipeline capacity additions, Kern River Gas Transmission’s 2003 expansion and multiple proposed LNG import terminals will dramatically alter the gas market in the West in the next few years.

Transco said Monday it had “Transco experienced significant positive transportation imbalances (receipts in excess of deliveries) on its system over the past weekend and expects this to continue through the end of September as a result of low gas prices.” Effective immediately, it is not allowing receipt make-up nominations unless they are sourced from the Washington or Eminence storage fields. Transco urged shippers to avoid any positive imbalances and to actively resolve any existing ones as soon as possible. It also said it will limit positively scheduled imbalances at all pooling points to a tolerance of 1% or 1,000 dekatherms, whichever is greater. Shippers with negatively scheduled imbalances at their pools will continue to be held to a 4% tolerance level. Transco may proactively decrease deliveries into the pools to bring them in line with receipts away from the pooling points.

El Paso Merchant Energy, an affiliate of El Paso Natural Gas, isreaping “monopoly rents in excess of 7,000% higher than the justand reasonable rate approved by the Commission for its regulatedsibling,” Southern California Edison told the Federal EnergyRegulatory Commission last week.

El Paso Merchant Energy, an affiliate of El Paso Natural Gas, isreaping “monopoly rents in excess of 7,000% higher than the justand reasonable rate approved by the Commission for its regulatedsibling,” Southern California Edison told the Federal EnergyRegulatory Commission last week.

Consumers and utilities continued to butt heads in Californialast week over how to deal with almost $5 billion in uncollectedrevenues by the state’s three major investor-owned utilities in thewake of this summer’s wholesale electricity price spikes. Withretail rates frozen the utilities have only collected a portion ofthe added cost of power since May. Consumer activists in SanFrancisco and San Diego last Tuesday launched a campaign againstthe utilities seeking pledges from political candidates throughoutthe state to promise to oppose the utilities’ attempts to raiseconsumer rates to recover their costs.

Southern Wholesale Energy, the trading arm of Southern Company,signed a wholesale power supply contract with Dynegy Energy toprovide 260 MW of power from its excess wholesale capacity. Theagreement is the second wholesale power agreement between the twocompanies within the last six months.

Southern Wholesale Energy, the trading arm of Southern Company,signed a wholesale power supply contract with Dynegy Energy toprovide 260 MW of power from its excess wholesale capacity. Theagreement is the second wholesale power agreement between the twocompanies within the last six months.

Pacific Gas & Electric ended a high-inventory OFO Saturdayafter it had been in effect for three days.