Lake

Refusing to go down without a fight, Salt Lake City-based Questar Corp. said it will pursue available legal and regulatory alternatives in response to a Utah Supreme Court decision on Aug. 1, which rejected the recovery of certain natural gas-processing costs incurred by its retail natural gas distribution subsidiary Questar Gas Co.

Refusing to go down without a fight, Salt Lake City-based Questar Corp. said Sunday that it would pursue available legal and regulatory alternatives in response to a Utah Supreme Court decision on Aug. 1, which rejected the recovery of certain natural gas-processing costs incurred by its retail natural gas distribution subsidiary Questar Gas Co.

Northwest Pipeline said longitudinal stress-corrosion cracking caused a pipeline rupture on its 26-inch diameter line near Lake Tapps, WA, on May 1. A report by a metallurgical firm from Texas determined the cause. It is the first time that stress-corrosion cracking, the Canadian pipeline industry’s nemesis, has caused a failure on the Northwest system, the company said. Landslides are usually the cause of pipeline ruptures on Northwest.

Northwest Pipeline said longitudinal stress-corrosion cracking caused a pipeline rupture on its 26-inch diameter line near Lake Tapps, WA, on May 1. A report by a metallurgical firm from Texas determined the cause. It is the first time that stress-corrosion cracking, the Canadian pipeline industry’s nemesis, has caused a failure on the Northwest system, the company said. Landslides are usually the cause of pipeline ruptures on Northwest.

Vector Pipeline LP. announced Monday that a new interconnect between its pipeline and ANR Pipeline Co. has been put into service at St. John in Lake County, IN. The connection is designed to provide natural gas customers in the Midwest and southwestern Ontario additional flexibility and access to natural gas supplies at the Joliet/Chicago Hub.

FirstEnergy Corp. has canceled the $1.5 billion sale of four predominantly coal-fired power plants (2,535 MW) located along Lake Erie in Ohio to NRG Energy in anticipation of a breach of the sale agreement by NRG. FirstEnergy notified NRG, which is struggling through a financial crisis due to credit downgrades, and its NRG Able Acquisition LLC affiliate on Thursday that the agreements have been canceled and that FirstEnergy has reserved its right to pursue legal action against the companies.

Salt Lake City-based Questar Corp. said Wednesday that the $100 million, 410-mile eastern portion of its converted Southern Trails pipeline is expected to be free-flowing gas supplies by mid-June en route to being fully operation with 80 MMcf/d of compressed supplies flowing in the former oil pipeline by July 1. The pipeline stretches from the Four Corners area of New Mexico to the California border.

Aquila has purchased the proposed Red Lake Storage Project from Southwest Gas Corp. for an undisclosed sum. The deal includes 36,000 acres about 30 miles north of Kingman, AZ, and the rights to develop a salt cavern gas storage facility. Along with the land, Aquila purchased the water and mineral rights necessary to develop the facility.

El Paso had scheduled its Alamo Lake Station to be down Jan. 31 to change inlet scrubber and fuel filters. But because the units have tripped several times recently, the project has been accelerated to occur Friday. It will reduce capacity of the Havasu Crossover by 150 MMcf/d. The work will coincide with a scheduled outage of Line 1208 on the North Mainline to mitigate overall impact.