Jackson

Jackson, MI-based Consumers Energy has experienced a surge of customer interest in its largest natural gas distribution pipeline system expansion in a decade — 36 miles — in Secord Township and three other jurisdictions in the north-central, lower peninsula portion of the state.

In a letter to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator (EPA) Lisa Jackson Thursday, Republican Sens. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma and David Vitter of Louisiana blasted the agency’s decision to again delay the public comment period on the controversial draft report examining groundwater contamination near Pavillion, WY.

CHS Inc., the nation’s largest farmer-owned cooperative, launched a proposal Wednesday to build a $1.1-1.4 billion nitrogen fertilizer manufacturing plant in North Dakota that would take advantage of natural gas feedstock to provide U.S. and Canadian farmers with enhanced supplies of crop nutrients.

The Environment Protection Agency (EPA) said it would “review and consider” an industry report’s claims that the agency has significantly overestimated methane emissions from natural gas well operations, particularly from unconventional wells using hydraulic fracturing. It contends, however, that its emissions estimates are based on the best data available.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) data and analysis did not support the conclusion linking water contamination in Pavillion, WY, to chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, according to a new analysis released Wednesday.

Northwest said the Jackson Prairie storage facility will become available again for customer withdrawals on Friday’s gas day. The pipeline said it also will perform a withdrawal test that day and encouraged customers to limit banking as on-system balancing will be limited.

A story about the dangers of hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking), which was published by the New York Times last weekend, was “deliberately misleading,” the former chief of Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) said Monday.

Northwest notified shippers that due to the current shut-in of Questar’s Clay Basin storage facility (see Daily GPI, Oct. 8) and the need to protect its own Jackson Prairie storage account for the upcoming winter season, “Northwest is no longer able to mitigate the overscheduling of Kemmerer” Compressor Station. Thus a recall advisory and realignment OFO were to become effective Saturday (Oct. 11) until further notice, Northwest said. It will issue the daily OFO obligations to affected parties if the primary firm scheduled quantity through Kemmerer is above the design capacity of 655,000 Dth/d. Shippers with OFO obligations must realign nominations from receipt points south of Kemmerer to receipt points north of Kemmerer, “or may elect to voluntarily reduce their nominations through Kemmerer by the OFO volume or take other mutually agreeable action to alleviate the problem,” the pipeline added.

Gulf South will begin about five days of scheduled pipe maintenance on its Index 300-11 segment in Jackson County, MS, on May 1. The Pascagoula (from Chandeleur) and Pascagoula (to Chevron) points will be shut in during this work. To the extent that Primary Firm service is interrupted at the affected locations, Gulf South will claim force majeure.