Majeure

In an update on its 500 Line force majeure declared last week in connection with Atchafalaya River flooding, Tennessee said it had determined that the pipe section between Main Line Valves (MLV) 516 and 518 did not need to be isolated along with the segment between MLVs 518 and 521 after all. Thus three meters that it had subsequently added to an original list of five slated for shut-in were allowed to keep flowing. Tennessee also said it had returned to service Monday the 800 Line after completing an outage from MLV 827-1 to MLV 830-1 that had required suspension of physical flow at two meters; however, Station 834 will remain offline through Wednesday for various repairs and maintenance.

Tennessee lifted Monday a systemwide Imbalance Warning that had been implemented two days earlier.

Saying it has limited operational flexibility to manage imbalances in zones 0, L, 1 and 2, and due to the force majeure at Station 214 in Ohio resulting from a potential pipe rupture Thursday night, Tennessee issued an Imbalance Warning Monday requiring all delivery point operators in those zones to keep actual daily takes out of the system equal to or greater than scheduled quantities regardless of their cumulative imbalance position. Similarly, all receipt point operators in the zones were asked to keep actual daily receipts into the system equal to or less than scheduled quantities regardless of their cumulative imbalance position.

Tennessee declared a force majeure event Friday for Station 214 (Carrolton, OH) after a “possible rupture” occurred nearby (see related story). No injuries were reported, and there was no interruption of customer service, said pipeline spokesman Robert Newberry. However, Tennessee anticipated limiting intraday flow increases for Friday’s gas day and restricting 100% secondary out of path (SOP) nominations and lower priority services going forward, with a possibility of restricting a pro-rata portion of secondary in path (SIP) nominations. “At this time the certainty of such restrictions [is] unknown due to the current investigation of the incident,” a bulletin board posting said.

Tennessee declared a force majeure event of an unspecified nature Friday for the 26-inch diameter 523M-100 line south of Cocodrie, LA. Tennessee said it has isolated the pipe section and is in the process of lowering the pressure for further analysis. Five Ship Shoal and two South Pelto meters were required to shut in, but Tennessee said it is allowing associated nominations to remain in place at this time.

Rockies Express lifted Tuesday the force majeure it had issued Monday in association with a unit outage at Turney Compressor Station. No service was affected, the pipeline said.

CenterPoint issued a notice of force majeure Tuesday, saying it will begin an estimated two weeks of unscheduled unit maintenance Wednesday at Searcy (AR) Compressor Station on Line J in the North Pooling Area. During this work up to 125,000 Dth/d of deliveries (including to the TGT@Searcy interconnect) and corresponding receipts could be affected. It’s possible that firm shippers with primary delivery points on Line J will not be scheduled during the maintenance period, CenterPoint said. See the bulletin board for a list of receipt points where scheduling could be impacted.

Saying it expected to complete repairs sometime Friday, Rockies Express (REX) declared a force majeure event for Thursday’s gas day at Bertrand Compressor Station due to an aftercooler leak on Unit 5. Until further notice REX was limiting quantities through Segment 250 to 1,730,000 Dth/d. Based on the level of scheduled quantities, AOR/IT, secondary and primary FT quantities are at risk of not being fully scheduled, the pipeline said.

CIG declared a force majeure following an engine turbocharger failure at its Laramie East Compressor Station. Effective with Saturday’s gas day CIG was reducing station capacity form 770 MMcf/d to 680 MMcf/d until further notice. Currently the capacity is fully subscribed at the 770 MMcf/d level, the pipeline said.