Failure

Westcoast declared force majeure following a failure earlyMonday morning on its T-South transmission system. The pipelinesaid it is investigating the cause of the incident, which occurredon the 30-inch mainline between Compressor Stations 8A and 8B. The36-inch loop was unaffected. Capacity through the Huntingdon/Sumasexport point is limited to 1,400 MMcf/d as a result of theincident; however, based on current volume levels, Westcoast doesnot expect any impact on T-South deliveries.

Due to a compressor failure at its Riner Station, Williamsdeclared a force majeure situation on Line Segments 490 and 491.Necessary repairs are expected to be completed by next Monday’s gasday. Since capacity in the two segments has been reduced,maintenance originally scheduled for the week of Aug. 21 at theCheyenne and Ogallah Stations will be done this week to minimizedisruptions during August, Williams said.

Questar experienced a mechanical failure Thursday in Unit #7 atits Clay Basin storage facility. Barring unexpected complications,repairs should be complete by today and the unit available forservice again on Tuesday’s gas day, the pipeline said. Injectioncapacity has been reduced to 235,000 Dth/d during the outage.Allocation of injection capacity was expected to occur each day,with the impact determined by customer nominations. However, thereis no impact on withdrawal nominations, Questar said.

After gapping lower at the open, natural gas futures followed aslippery downward slope yesterday as traders liquidated positionsamid bearish technicals and ahead of warming temperatures expectedlater this week. In contrast to light selling seen last week,yesterday’s weakness manifested itself across the entire strip ofcontracts, led by the May contract which tumbled 7.6 cents to$2.744. Comparatively, the prompt contract eased 7.1 cents to$2.714 and the 12-month strip gave back 5.4 cents to $2.867.Trading was active, with an estimated 63,810 contracts changinghands.

Northwest reported experiencing a failure of the Unit #4compressor at its Soda Springs (ID) Station Wednesday morning dueto damaged rings and cylinders. Cause of the damage is beinginvestigated. Northwest said it was able to maintain scheduledquantities that day, but starting today capacity through SodaSprings will be limited to 445,000 Dth/d. This will not require anycuts in Primary Firm nominations, the pipeline said. It estimatedthe compressor will be back in service March 2.

It was in like a lion and out like a lamb for March’s debut asthe spot month Friday as traders took the contract higher at theopening bell only to deliver it lower throughout the rest of thesession. March finished down 1.7 cents at $2.532.

After a strong opening failed to attract the buying necessary tofill the chart gap up to $2.52, the natural gas futures marketsagged Friday, as traders turned once again to the deleteriouseffects of above-normal temperatures in both short and long rangeforecasts.

Transwestern said the failure of a compressor unit at Station 4(Apache County, AZ) has lowered West of Thoreau capacity from850,000 MMbtu/d to about 750,000 MMbtu/d. The unit is expected toreturn to service Sunday.

The fallout from a June products pipeline explosion in thePacific Northwest is spilling over into the realm of natural gas,with renewed calls for greater regulation, inspection and morelocal control of pipelines.