Issuing

The Boulder City Council in Colorado on Tuesday night unanimously agreed to impose a one-year moratorium on issuing new drilling permits, and it adopted on first reading a ban to use or sell water for oil and gas extraction.

A Harris Interactive poll found that 74% of North Carolina voters support moving forward with exploring for and eventually producing oil and natural gas off the state’s Atlantic Coast.

Nova Scotia officials are exploring options to secure a more stable natural gas supply and are issuing a request for proposals (RFP) to examine challenges on price volatility and meeting gas demand now and into the future.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich has signed an executive order prohibiting the state’s Department of Natural Resources “from issuing any permit, license or lease allowing for the withdrawal or production of oil and gas from or under the bed of Lake Erie.” Congress previously enacted legislation prohibiting the issuance of permits or leases for drilling under the Great Lakes, but it was important that Ohio issue its own prohibition on Lake Erie drilling in case the congressional ban should be lifted, according to the executive order.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are close to issuing a final rule further defining the terms “swap” and “securities-based swap,” which would trigger a rule establishing limits on speculative positions in the futures and swaps markets, the CFTC chief told Senate members last week.

The head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) told Congress Tuesday that it and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are close to issuing a final rule further defining the terms “swap” and “securities-based swap,” which would trigger a rule establishing limits on speculative positions in the futures and swaps markets.

Due to cold weather forecasts in its service area, MRT is issuing a System Protection Warning (SPW) effective Thursday until further notice; see the bulletin board for SPW conditions. With capacity currently available on the East Line, shippers who were relying on Main Line IT and/or AOR volumes are encouraged to resource supply to the East Line or reduce applicable delivery volumes to avoid incurring an OFO.

Only a day after issuing them, Tennessee lifted two meter-specific Balancing Alert OFOs. The pipeline also said it continues investigation of a November rupture near Main Line Valve (MLV) 205-4 in Morgan County, OH, about four miles southeast of the city of Glouster (see Daily GPI, Nov. 21, 2011). Currently line 4 is isolated and Tennessee is maintaining a reduced pressure from Station 200 in Greenup, KY, to Station 219 in Mercer, PA. The Rockies Express (REX) interconnect flows into Line 4 between MLVs 208 and 209. To further evaluate the section between the valves, Tennessee was required to reduce the pressure there. Thus it was not accepting any nomination increases at the REX meter Tuesday and effective Wednesday until further notice will not accept any nominations at all from the REX meter.

Southern California Gas set a positive imbalance tolerance of 10% in issuing a high-linepack OFO for Saturday.