Louisiana

Sonat reported discovering a small leak in its 8-inch Pointe a la Hache line in southeastern Louisiana. Sonat declared a force majeure and shut in the Pointe a la Hache receiving station. Nominations through the line ceased to be scheduled Friday until completion of the repairs, which are expected to take about five days.

Texas Eastern said it had finished valve repairs on its Venice Lateral in the East Louisiana Zone (see Daily GPI, July 26) and brought the line back into service Thursday morning, allowing affected production to resume at scheduled volumes. Shipper imbalances incurred during the brief outage may be made up through the end of the month, Texas Eastern said.

FERC yesterday gave Egan Hub Partners L.P. the green light to expand the maximum operating capacity of its two-cavern facility in Louisiana by 5.5 Bcf.

As a result of compression outages at Grand Chenier Station on the southwest Louisiana coast, volumes that ANR can receive there from HIOS and the West Cameron near-shore blocks was cut by about 40 MMcf/d Wednesday until further notice.

Transco reported being notified that the North Terrebonne Gas Processing Plant in South Louisiana was able to resume operations over the weekend. The plant had shut down May 10 due to a propane leak on the suction side of one of the refrigeration compressors. Its operators indicated to Transco “that restart of the plant was delayed due to problems encountered in starting up the plant’s other refrigeration compressor. We are still experiencing some problems with this compressor. As a result of the plant’s restart, delivery points on Transco will see a cutback in the recent buildup of Btu content that started when the plant went down.

Sea Robin said divers are investigating a reported leak on the “J” leg part of its offshore Louisiana system near Eugene Island Block 295, requiring the leg to be removed from service. The pipeline ceased accepting nominations at affected points Tuesday until further notice.

The Eastern Gulf of Mexico Sale 181, which covers an area about 64 miles offshore Louisiana, 15 miles offshore Alabama and at least 100 miles offshore Florida, is still on track for December, Interior Secretary Gale Norton said last week — even though her boss President Bush and his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, have voiced opposition to opening up Florida’s coast for drilling.

The Eastern Gulf of Mexico Sale 181, which covers an area about 64 miles offshore Louisiana, 15 miles offshore Alabama and at least 100 miles offshore Florida, is still on track for December, Interior Secretary Gale Norton said this week — even though her boss President Bush and his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, have voiced opposition to opening up Florida’s coast for drilling.

Tennessee reported being notified by Dynegy Midstream Services,operator of the Yscloskey Gas Processing Plant in southeasternLouisiana, that effective April 1 the plant will no longer process”strangers” gas that does not have a contractual relationship withthe plant. In the event this action causes Tennessee to once againexperience operational difficulties attributable to gas with highBtu levels, the pipeline said, it will do whatever is necessary tolower overall Btu content on its 500 Line to manageable levels.