Lifting

Effective today, Northern Border is lifting a firm-only restriction on its 42-inch Monchy/Port of Morgan to Ventura segment. The constraint had been implemented Wednesday due to compressor station outages upstream of Ventura (see Daily GPI, Oct. 4).

Murphy Oil Co., lifting a veil of secrecy that has hung over ahot drilling play for a year, told the National Energy Board itexpects to achieve production of up to 310 MMcf/d in northeasternBritish Columbia this year.

MRT is lifting today a System Protection Warning that had beenimplemented Tuesday (see Daily GPI, Dec. 12).

Northwest is lifting today the Stage III Declared EntitlementPeriod for the northern half of its system that went into effect lastFriday (see Daily GPI, Oct. 9). However,the pipeline gave warning of the potential for subsequent entitlement,which allows it to impose a new entitlement after the close of theconfirmation process for the coming gas day. In addition, Northwestsaid effective today it will be necessary to limit the Kemmerer (WY)and possibly the Meacham (OR) and/or Green River (WY) Stations toprimary nominations only in order to make space for Northwest to moveClay Basin storage gas to the Jackson Prairie storage facility. Thepipeline explained the situation this way: “Throughout SeptemberNorthwest experienced continuous customer drafting. To compound theproblem, the price difference between Canadian and Rockies gassupplies has been significant, causing Kemmerer throughput to remainat or above capacity. The price difference threatens to continueindefinitely. If the drafting and unprecedented use of maximumKemmerer capacity persists, depleting Jackson Prairie and making ClayBasin unavailable for use in Northwest’s market areas, customersshould be advised that Northwest must continue to use the toolsavailable to maintain system integrity, including entitlement,alternate gas allocation and operational flow orders.”

In a ground-breaking move yesterday, FERC proposed lifting theprice caps on capacity in the short-term market and allowingpipelines to negotiate the terms and conditions of service withtheir customers. These, as well as other proposals, represent themost comprehensive review of the Commission’s gas regulations sinceOrder 636.