Night

Westcoast ended Thursday an OFO that had been implemented two days earlier due to excessively low linepack.

Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, in his speech Thursday night accepting the Democratic nomination for president, pledged to back exploration and production of natural gas if he is elected in November.

In what amounts to a largely symbolic gesture, the elected Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 Tuesday night to support a resumption of drilling off its Southern California coast. The board agreed to write to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger urging him to reverse the state’s decades-long opposition to any additional drilling.

The wait for the Independence Hub natural gas deepwater production platform in the Gulf of Mexico to come back on-line got a little longer Tuesday night as Enterprise Products Partners LP announced that it was revising the restart date from “mid-May” to the “first half of June,” provided there are no “unexpected weather issues.”

Maritimes & Northeast U.S. (M&N) said Tuesday night it had learned that the Sable Offshore Energy Inc. production facility offshore Nova Scotia experienced a decrease in production during the April 29 gas day. However, on Wednesday morning M&N reported that output at the Sable facility had returned to normal levels and it lifted an associated restriction on imbalances.

Southern California Gas did not extend a high-linepack OFO beyond Tuesday.

Noting that its linepack was low and cold weather was forecast to move into its Florida market area Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, Florida Gas Transmission (FGT) implemented an Overage Alert Day for market-area customers Tuesday. The tolerance for negative daily imbalances was set at 25%. FGT said it would not interrupt previously scheduled ITS-1 service for Tuesday’s gas day in the market area “below the elapsed prorated scheduled quantity.”

President Bush’s final “State of the Union” speech to the nation Monday night left out oil and natural gas altogether, but the president, in fact sheets released prior to the address, urged Congress to pass legislation that opens access to domestic oil and gas resources in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) and Alaska.

El Paso’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline declared a force majeure event Wednesday night in conjunction with a “possible leak” on its TTT Pipeline segment offshore Louisiana. Six Eugene Island meters and four Ship Shoal meters were required to shut in until further notice.