Implementing

Citing cold conditions, Panhandle Eastern is implementing an Operational Alert effective Tuesday until further notice. Hourly flows under Rate Schedules EFT and EIT will be limited during any single hour to one-sixteenth of the gas nominated at a delivery point for that gas day, Panhandle said. In addition, it added, flows under Rate Schedules FT and IT will be limited during any hour to one-twenty-fourth of the gas nominated at a delivery point that day. “Panhandle may limit AutoUnpark nominations on the pipeline for the duration of the extreme weather. These limits will be evaluated on a daily basis,” the pipeline said.

A final generic environmental impact statement for developing and implementing an Energy Portfolio Standard (EPS) — a key step toward New York’s goal of reducing electric usage by 15% of projected levels by 2015 and setting an energy efficiency goal for natural gas — has been accepted by the New York State Public Service Commission (PCS).

Northern Natural Gas, which ended a System Overrun Limitation (SOL) for all market-area zones Wednesday after a four-day run, is implementing a new SOL Thursday — again for all market-area zones. It said the new SOL was called “due to extremely cold forecasted temperatures” for Thursday’s gas day. System Management Service percentages were set at zero for all zones Thursday.

Citing capacity constraints, MRT is implementing a System Protection Warning Tuesday. See the bulletin board for its conditions.

After implementing a Strained Operating Condition (SOC) Friday, CIG has issued an OFO that will take effect Wednesday until further notice. The OFO was necessary to preserve system integrity and reliability, the pipeline said. As noted in the SOC posting, “CIG’s system is operating at an extremely high load factor. Further, CIG’s total storage inventories are currently at or near the operational field limits, including the largest field, Ft. Morgan, which is nearly at operational capacity. Because of these conditions, CIG does not have the ability to absorb imbalances caused by mismatches between scheduled receipts and deliveries or those arising from variations in actual gas flow relative to scheduled quantities. As stated in the SOC, capacity for interruptible storage injections is not available.” Conditions of the OFO include a requirement that interruptible storage customers withdraw the greater of 10% of current inventory or 5,000 Dth/d. See the bulletin board for other details.

Three of Pennsylvania’s energy companies may realize yearly savings of up to $233,400 and one-time savings up to $241,000 by implementing recommendations of a recent audit, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) said Friday.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin last Tuesday took the next step in implementing her Alaska Gasline Inducement Act (AGIA) by issuing a request for applications from companies for an exclusive license to build a $30 billion-plus pipeline to bring Alaska North Slope natural gas to market.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin Tuesday took the next step in implementing her Alaska Gasline Inducement Act (AGIA) by issuing a request for applications from companies for an exclusive license to build a $30 billion-plus pipeline to bring Alaska North Slope natural gas to market.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has extended the time to file comments in the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) aimed at implementing the transparency provisions of the Energy Policy Act (AD06-11) and the staff has scheduled an informal workshop to discuss various implementation and other technical issues associated with the NOPR. The Commission said the extension was in response to a request by the Texas Gas Pipeline Association (TPA). The notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) would require intrastate gas pipelines to post on the Internet the daily capacities and volumes of natural gas flowing through their major receipt and delivery points. It also would require buyers and sellers of more than de minimus amounts of natural gas to report the numbers and volumes of relevant transactions for the previous calendar year. It also would require each holder of blanket marketing certificate authority or blanket unbundled sales services certificate authority to notify the Commission annually as to whether it reports its transactions to publishers of electricity or natural gas price indexes and whether the reporting conforms to certain standards. FERC extended the time for filing initial comments through July 11. Reply comments should be filed on or before Aug. 9. Questions about the conference should be directed to Lee Choo, lee-ken.choo@FERC.gov, (202) 502-6334.