Leak

Northern Natural Gas said Friday afternoon it had contracted a repair crew and dive boat that were en route to a leak site (see Daily GPI, March 2) on the Northern-operated Matagorda Offshore Pipeline System offshore Texas. Pending any weather delays, Northern expected the dive boat to arrive at the site late Saturday evening and repairs to begin Sunday. It anticipates restoration of service to some of the affected platforms downstream of Matagorda 758 by the start of Tuesday’s gas day.

Southern Natural Gas said Thursday it had completed repairs of a leak on its 14-inch diameter Chattanooga Branch line (see Daily GPI, Feb. 1) and the line is back in service. Southern resumed accepting nominations for interruptible deliveries (“B-1” and “IT”) in the affected area effective with Thursday’s Intraday 1 scheduling cycle.

Columbia Gulf reported discovering a leak on its 20-inch line upstream of the Eugene Island 250 platform in the Block 264 area. It said Eugene Island 331B, 314B, 314C, 314A and 271, where Columbia Gulf and Tennessee both have meters, and Eugene Island 294A, 338A, 315A and 316A, where Tennessee has the sole meter, will be required to shut in once repairs begin. No timetable for the repair startup had been set as of Friday afternoon, a spokesman said.

The Matagorda Offshore Pipeline System has determined that it does not have a leak on its 24-inch mainline (see Daily GPI, Aug. 5), operator Northern Natural Gas said. A force majeure situation on MOPS was canceled. NNG also said operational conditions on its East Leg had improved Friday, so it canceled a System Overrun Limitation for delivery points east of Belleville (WI) Station (see Daily GPI, Aug. 5).

Pacific Gas & Electric did not extend a two-day high-inventory OFO beyond Saturday.

Weather is delaying leak repairs on the South Pass 77 527A-700 line, Tennessee said Wednesday, and it now expects to complete the first portion of the work Saturday. Last week Tennessee had anticipated being able to finish Wednesday (see Daily GPI, April 26). The South Pass 77A meter remains shut in during the project. It also will be required to shut in during additional work on the line that is scheduled for Sept. 19-26.

Tennessee reported identifying a leak on the 500-1 line at valve 526-1A, and effective Sunday morning had required two Lake Washington Dehydration meters (#010555 and #101596) to shut in until further notice. Shippers accessing those meters were allowed to keep nominations in place for Monday’s gas day, but were required to reduce their nominations to zero for Tuesday’s Timely Cycle nominations. The pipeline declared a force majeure in conjunction with the event.

Tennessee declared a force majeure event Friday afternoon for meters on its 524C-600 Line due to a leak. The South Timbalier 54 meter offshore Louisiana was shut in for the duration of repairs, which was undetermined at that point.

Operator Northern Natural Gas declared force majeure after detecting a leak in the 20-inch mainline of Matagorda Offshore Pipeline System (MOPS) near the platform at Mustang Island 787. Offshore maintenance crews were responding, NNG said in a bulletin board posting late Thursday afternoon, and the Mustang Island 782, 785, 787, 803 and A-16 receipt points were to be shut in sometime during Friday’s gas day. Duration of the outage has not yet been determined, it said.