Hours

Just 24 hours after the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Pipeline Inspection, Protection, Enforcement and Safety Act of 2006 (H.R. 5782) (see Daily GPI, Dec. 7), the U.S. Senate on Thursday evening followed suit by unanimous voice vote.

A former assistant treasurer for Enron Corp. on Friday received four years probation, four months home confinement, a $10,000 fine and was ordered to do 300 hours of community service work for his misdeeds while working at the now-defunct company.

Strong after-hours Access trading Wednesday led to a 23.5-cent gap higher on the September contract at the open Thursday morning. The 57 Bcf injection into storage last week reported by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) triggered a brief 10-cent hiccup to a regular-session high of $7.20 at 10:30 a.m., but the market then succumbed to selling pressure still ending the day with a 20.4-cent gain at $7.079.

High demand combined with takes in excess of receipts has resulted in a loss of 140 MMcf in system linepack over the last 24 hours, El Paso said Tuesday, and its Washington Ranch storage facility was experiencing maximum withdrawals. “Scheduled pigging of the Havasu Crossover is under way, affecting access to San Juan Basin supply to the South System. The EOC [east of California] takeaway is running approximately 100 MMcf/d higher than at this time yesterday [Monday],” the pipeline said.. There is available capacity on the South System from Waha and through Guadalupe, it added. Maintenance on the San Juan Crossover and further pigging of the Havasu Crossover are scheduled for later this week, requiring that sufficient system linepack be maintained, El Paso said. A Strained Operating Condition may be declared unless the situation improves, it warned.

After 14 hours of deliberation, jurors in the false gas price reporting case of former Dynegy gas trader Michele Valencia and former El Paso Merchant Energy vice president Greg Singleton reached a verdict on some counts but not others.

Within hours of Marc Spitzer being sworn in as one of three new FERC commissioners, Arizona’s Gov. Janet Napolitano was handed a hot potato in naming Spitzer’s interim replacement on the state regulatory commission for the rest of the year. November’s election will produce a permanent new commissioner as Spitzer’s second elected term on the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) was set to expire Dec. 31.

After tumbling lower for the first three hours of trading, the natural gas futures market rebounded Wednesday as bears failed to press the market down to near-term technical support. The June contract finished the session at $6.606, down 14 cents on the day but above its $6.540 low for the session.

Northwest said issued a declared deficiency period beginning Sept. 8, 2005 and lasting 24 hours. The pipeline is replacing several segments of its mainline containing anomalies that were discovered earlier this year. The segments are located just north of the Cisco Compressor Station between milepost 195 and milepost 213. Since there will be no flow through the mainline during the deficiency period, Northwest will cut nominations to zero. Grand Gas Receipt, Harley Dome Delivery, and Grand Valley Receipt will be shut-in.

Less than 24 hours after a state panel rejected offshore drilling, a federal judge in California last Friday blocked exploratory drilling off the central California coast from Oxnard north to San Luis Obispo until there are more extensive environmental risk assessments completed. That process could take years, according to news media reports on the ruling.