Louisiana

Sea Robin Pipeline reported completion of pigging operations on its mainline from the offshore Vermilion 149 platform into Erath Station in South Louisiana, and said Wednesday the onshore liquid separation facility operated by Devon Energy is no longer restricting flows (see Daily GPI, May 10). Normal operating pressures have been restored, Sea Robin said.

Prices were flat to up a little more than 20 cents in most of the cash market Tuesday. The mild softness tended to congregate at Louisiana, Alabama/Mississippi and Northeast points. One source said storage buying must still be in vogue, because the physical market had support neither from a prior-day screen drop nor from weather that remains fairly mild outside a hot southern half of Texas and desert Southwest.

Southern Natural Gas said it is experiencing receipts in excess of scheduled quantities and pipeline capacity west of the Bienville Compressor Station in North Louisiana, and that is threatening operational integrity. If the situation does not improve, Southern said, it will implement a Type 5 OFO for receipts in excess of scheduled quantities effective with the start of Saturday’s gas day until further notice.

Despite the Bush administration’s request last week for $2.2 billion in additional funds for hurricane protection along Louisiana’s coast, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) said she would continue to block the nomination of Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne for secretary of Interior, as well as the nominations of other appointees who would influence the federal government’s energy and offshore production policies.

Farmers from Iowa, school representatives from North Dakota, chemical manufacturing officials from Illinois and pulp and paper workers from Louisiana were paraded up to a news conference microphone Wednesday to tell their stories about how high natural gas prices have hurt their businesses. The Consumer Alliance for Energy Security wants Congress to know there is pain being felt in every sector of the economy and new legislation should be passed to lift offshore drilling moratoria and increase gas supply.

With the exception of several scattered flat to lower points that were concentrated in the Midwest and Louisiana, prices continued to rise at a large majority of points Tuesday.

Trunkline said that as part of post-hurricane inspections required by the federal Minerals Management Service, it discovered that its lateral offshore Louisiana from Ewing Bank 305 to Grand Isle 82 apparently shifted from its pre-storm location. “At this time, Trunkline is unaware of any specific damage to the lateral,” the pipeline continued. “However, the nature of the observations requires that Trunkline reduce pressure on the lateral until further information can be obtained and analyzed.” Trunkline said it cut production on the lateral to zero, and until further notice no nominations are being accepted from Stone Energy’s Ewing Bank 305 platform.

Six Gulf Coast senators have introduced a bipartisan measure that calls for the federal government and the coastal states of Texas, Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi to equally share the oil and natural gas revenues generated from additional leasing in the gas-rich area known as Lease Sale 181 in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

The Williams Cameron Meadows gas processing plant in southern Louisiana returned to service at partial capacity of 300 MMcf/d. Williams said it began start-up operations at the plant last week, which has been out of service since Hurricane Rita, but cautioned that spot outages are possible over the next several days.