Hurricane

Citing the effects of Hurricane Isabel, Columbia Gas said Friday its markets in southeast Virginia were “taking gas at abnormally low levels” and the condition might require issuance of an OFO. Columbia said its ability to receive gas into Market Area 34, “specifically at the Emporia interconnection with Transco,” was very limited. Market Area 34 was already subject to Critical Day restrictions (see Daily GPI, Sept. 10). To avoid an OFO, customers were asked to minimize receipts into Market Area 34, especially at Emporia, where zero non-firm receipt capacity was posted. “Customers should attempt to verify the existence of their actual market prior to scheduling deliveries into Markets Areas 33 and 34,” the pipeline continued. See the bulletin board for actions that Columbia took to protect system integrity and other details.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission plans to close up shop Thursday as a precaution while Hurricane Isabel threatens to plow through the Virginia, Maryland and Washington, DC region. Congress also plans to scale back its activities.

Salvage work at Ship Shoal 207 associated with last year’s Hurricane Lili (see Daily GPI, July 1) has been completed, ANR said. It resumed accepting gas into its system Thursday from meters between Eugene Island 188 and Ship Shoal 207.

Piping on the Bay Marchand 5 platform offshore southeastern Louisiana was damaged during Hurricane Lili, Tennessee said. A jackup rig is scheduled to be on site Dec. 18 to perform repairs that are expected to last eight days. Physical flow will be suspended Dec. 18-25 at the following meters: Bay Marchand 24, Grand Isle 47, South Timbalier 22, Grand Isle 48J, South Timbalier 54/55E, and South Timbalier 23. A second Bay Marchand meter will be affected, but its block number was not identified.

Not even a burst of activity in what has so far been a quiet 2002 Atlantic hurricane season was able to support prices Monday. Except for mild upticks in California and the holiday-limited intra-Alberta market, along with a smidgen of flatness in the Northeast, most points fell between about a nickel and 30 cents. The larger declines tended to cluster in the Rockies, but Transco Zone 6-New York City continued to descend from last week’s stratospheric heights with a plunge of more than 40 cents to land it back in place with other Northeast quotes in the $3.20s.

As Floyd wreaked havoc up and down the East Coast last week,Hurricane FERC wrought its own brand of torrent on new pipelineconstruction. Shifting its policy more toward a market-based andconsumer-oriented focus, the Commission voted out (4-1) a policystatement eliminating set requirements for supporting contracts andany presumption for rolled-in pricing that would raise the rates ofexisting customers.

The industry will have to wait another week to see the storageimpact from Hurricane Georges, but judging from AGA’s reportyesterday, Hermine, following on Frances and Earl, did her share inpartly holding back the strong tide of injections. AGA reported ameasly 41 Bcf rise for the week ending Sept. 25, which shaved alarge 46 Bcf chunk off the storage surplus compared to last year.

Last week gas buyers were pooh-poohing the “hurricane hype” theyhad been hearing earlier about Tropical Storm Charley. Well, sorry,Charley, you may have been a small fish when it came to impactinggas production, but Earl is the real thing.

Just like a hurricane sends offshore rig crews to shore, atempest on the stock market can drive investors to the relativesafety of utility stocks. While many energy company stock pricesare buckling under the weight of the declining market, some utilitystocks are faring rather well, thank you. Duke Energy is anexample.