Experienced

Sonat has experienced another unscheduled outage of unknown duration at Olga Compressor Station in southeast Louisiana. It required a reduction in interruptible receipt (A-1 and/or IT) capacity on the 26-inch Main Pass Area line effective with Tuesday’s intra-day 1 cycle. The latest outage is the fourth in a series over the past couple of months (see Daily GPI, April 1, March 17 and Feb. 13).

Demand for creditworthy counterparties and experienced risk management services has prompted Deutsche Bank AG and Wachovia Corp. to enter the U.S. natural gas trading and risk management business. Deutsche Bank reported last week that it hired a former El Paso Merchant Energy trading official and several additional gas trading professionals to anchor its operation.

Demand for creditworthy counterparties and experienced risk management services, has prompted Deutsche Bank AG and Wachovia Corp. to enter the U.S. natural gas trading and risk management business. Deutsche Bank has hired a former El Paso Merchant Energy trading official and several additional gas trading professionals to anchor its operation.

Northwest reminded shippers that during the Jan. 4-6 period its market area experienced extreme cold that caused heavy drafting on the system, and the pipeline’s Jackson Prairie storage account dropped from 1.8 Bcf to 1.4 Bcf in those three days “even with the assistance of a few customers realigning their supplies.” Several weather sources have indicated that similar weather would again reach the market area beginning Sunday (Jan. 25), Northwest said. In addition, it will be conducting maintenance on the Columbia Gorge section of the pipe during the first week in February. To ensure system integrity and maintain adequate storage levels for the upcoming maintenance, Northwest declared a Stage III entitlement (with 13% tolerance for overruns for receiving parties north of the Kemmerer Compressor Station) effective Monday until further notice.

Dynegy Inc.’s CEO said Thursday that the company is well on its way to a successful self-restructuring by paring down its debt $1.5 billion and reducing collateral needs more than 50% in the past 12 months. However, said Bruce Williamson, “we’re not done.”

Dynegy Inc.’s CEO said Thursday that the company is well on its way to a successful self-restructuring by paring down its debt $1.5 billion and reducing collateral needs more than 50% in the past 12 months. However, said Bruce Williamson, “we’re not done.”

Texas Eastern said that due to mild weather over the past weekend it experienced significant underdeliveries that were compounded by over-receipts into its system. As storage fields fill, the pipeline said it has limited capacity for injections to deal with shipper imbalances. Tetco said all customers need to work off “Due Shipper” imbalances immediately. Tetco expects the mild weather conditions to continue. No shipper imbalances can be absorbed across its entire system until further notice.

Northwest reported Wednesday afternoon that over the past two days it “experienced a dramatic increase in the strain gauge readings on the 26-inch mainline” near Carson, WA in the Columbia River Gorge. As a result, a stress relief project previously scheduled to begin Friday instead was implemented Wednesday. The line was taken out of service in the interests of safety for excavation crews. Physical flows were cut to zero through Willard Compressor Station (normal design capacity of 425,000 Dth/d southbound and 487,000 Dth/d northbound). “Given the current flow patterns through this section of pipe, Northwest anticipates that storage flexibility will be used to meet customer requests during the outage,” it said. “However, any significant increase in nominations across the Gorge could result in capacity cuts and a possible deficiency period.” The pipeline did not project any date for ending the work.

As expected, the natural gas futures market experienced another high-volatility trading session Friday as traders kept an eye on Hurricane Isabel. Prices dove lower during the first hour of trading only to rebound convincingly in the afternoon as traders were reticent to be short heading into the weekend. October finished at $4.766, up 2.8 cents for the day, and down only a scant half-cent for the week.