Must

Bullish energy traders must have been celebrating their good fortune Thursday as they received supportive price news from the same man for the second time in a little more than a week. AccuWeather.com Chief Long-Range Forecaster Joe Bastardi and his team said last week that they expect this summer to be hotter than normal across a large part of the United States, including the most heavily populated areas of the Northeast.

Florida Gas Transmission said it must excavate its mainline just upstream of Galveston Bay in Texas to conduct a thorough examination. FGT was making preparations for the excavation during Wednesday’s gas day but continued to schedule up to 150,000 MMBtu/d through Station 6; that is half of the station’s normal capacity due to an unscheduled upstream pipe examination that began Tuesday (see Daily GPI, Jan. 9). FGT plans to begin the excavation and thorough examination Thursday, saying the work may take two days. For the gas days of Thursday and Friday, zero gas will be scheduled into the system upstream (west) of Galveston Bay. Volumes will be scheduled as normal downstream (east) of Galveston Bay. NGPL Jefferson is one of the first major interconnects just to the east of Galveston Bay that will be scheduled as normal Thursday and Friday, FGT said. It will resume scheduling normal capacity of up to 300,000 MMBtu/d through Station 6 on those days.

ANR Pipeline said it must repair an engine at the St. John Compressor Station in Indiana in the Northern Fuel Segment (ML-7) that will reduce St. John west-to-east capacity by 115 MMcf/d (leaving 1,190 MMcf/d available) through Dec. 18. Based on current nominations, the outage could result in the curtailment of firm secondary and IT nominations, ANR said.

ANR notified its interruptible storage customers under Rate Schedules DDS and MBS that they must reduce their remaining inventory to zero by Oct. 31. ANR will continue to allow infield transfers to and from DDS and MBS accounts if the transfers do not cause account balances to exceed 35% of their June 14 allocated balance, as long as the accounts are emptied by Oct. 31. A daily restriction on interruptible injections that was implemented June 12 (see Daily GPI, June 13) remains in effect until further notice, ANR said.

Clean coal and natural gas-fired electric generation must be part of the energy mix in the Pacific Northwest, along with wind and hydro-electric sources, according to two regional industry executives speaking Thursday at an energy conference in Seattle. The power and natural gas sector’s continuing volatility is accompanied by robust growth that is an opportunity for coal and gas both, the speakers said.

Both the U.S. and, in particular, Texas must start constructing more power generation that is baseload and fueled by sources other than natural gas, Barry Smitherman, a commissioner with the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) told Texas lawmakers last week.

The U.S. seems slow to realize that it must try harder to compete for global liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply. And even with all the Rockies pipeline projects that have been completed in the past few years, more takeaway capacity is needed for regional production to realize its true value. These themes were common in the “Alternative Gas — Supply Sources for the Region” panel discussion Tuesday at the LDC Forum-Rockies and West conference in Los Angeles.

To restore oil and natural gas production in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the energy industry and federal government must focus on easing the plight of energy workers in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, many of whose homes have been destroyed and/or are under water, so that they can return to platforms and drilling rigs, said a top official with a major pipeline group.

Citing its current and projected storage inventory, ANR notified storage customers under its DDS and MBS rate schedules that effective last Tuesday, it must limit their account activity to zero net injections through Oct. 31, the end of the traditional injection season. ANR said it will continue to allow DDS/MBS injections “provided that an equal or greater amount of gas is withdrawn” prior to Nov. 1. “Please be advised that daily operating conditions and firm service confirmations will determine the daily level of interruptible storage activity allowed.”