Forced

FERC last Tuesday signaled it may be forced to issue a “stop work order” to Rockies Express Pipeline LLC (REX) if the “poor compliance record” continues during the construction of the second segment of the Entrega Pipeline project. The Entrega project, renamed Rockies Express-Entrega, will be the western end of the proposed 1,663-mile Rockies Express pipeline when completed.

FERC Tuesday signaled it may be forced to issue a “stop work order” to Rockies Express Pipeline LLC (REX) if the “poor compliance record” continues during the construction of the second segment of the Entrega Pipeline project. The Entrega project, now named Rockies Express-Entrega, will be the western end of the proposed 1,663-mile Rockies Express pipeline when completed.

As politicians in the Bahamas continue to mull over the fate of several long-proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects, AES Corp. was forced to ask FERC this week to push back a deadline for a gas pipeline project from the Bahamas to Florida by four years to January 2011 (see Daily GPI, Sept. 20, 2001 and Jan. 23, 2004).

With major winter weather forecasts still not in agreement, it appears that the energy industry will be forced to wait and see what Mother Nature actually has in store this year. Sticking to its winter forecast released earlier this month (see Daily GPI, Oct. 11), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reiterated on Thursday that it expects this winter to be warmer than the 30-year norm (1971-2000) over much of the nation, yet cooler than last year’s very warm winter season.

Hurricane Wilma forced an increase in Gulf of Mexico gas production shut-ins on Friday, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) reported. Shut-ins rose to 5,337 MMcf/d from 5,196 MMcf/d a day earlier. Although there was little chance that the hurricane would make a turn into the Central Gulf, that didn’t stop some Gulf producers and drilling companies from evacuating personnel and shutting down restoration efforts on offshore facilities.

Escalating natural gas prices forced Illinois retail gas marketer Santanna Energy to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday just a few days after Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan filed a lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court against the company because it reneged on its fixed-rate contract offerings to about 15,000 northern Illinois residential customers.

Southern Natural Gas has restored service on all facilities that were forced to shut down because of damage last September from Hurricane Ivan. Over the course of Monday and Tuesday it announced the completion of repairs to the 12-inch Main Pass 144 lateral, the 18-inch Main Pass 306 lateral and the 24-inch Main Pass 289-298 line. It released the following receipt points from a force majeure and approved them for flow: Main Pass 133 C, Main Pass 123-Pogo, Main Pass 144 Chevron, Main Pass 306, Main Pass 288 Conoco, Main Pass 289-Main Pass 290 Shell and Main Pass 289 VKGC. An affiliated pipeline, Tennessee, still has about 14 MMcf/d in Ivan-related outages at two meters in the South Pass area, an El Paso Corp. spokesman said. Those meters are expected to be back online by the end of September.

Ever-bullish analysts at Raymond James & Associates were forced to admit last week that their gas price forecast for 2005 appears excessive in light of the current gas storage surplus. However, that didn’t stop them from raising their price forecasts for 2006 and 2007 far beyond what some other experts are predicting.

Ever-bullish analysts at Raymond James & Associates were forced to admit Monday that their gas price forecast for 2005 appears excessive in light of the current gas storage surplus. However, that didn’t stop them from raising their price forecasts for 2006 and 2007 far beyond what some other experts are predicting.