Nominations

The long-awaited Rockies Express Pipeline (REX) was accepting nominations today Friday for initial deliveries Saturday, Jan. 12, 2008, starting up initial operations of the massive pipeline from the fastest growing U.S. supply region. The pipeline eventually will stretch nearly 1,700 miles to points East across the country.

The long-awaited Rockies Express Pipeline (REX) was accepting nominations last Friday for initial deliveries Saturday, Jan. 12, starting up initial operations of the massive pipeline from the fastest growing U.S. supply region. The pipeline eventually will stretch nearly 1,700 miles to points East across the country.

Early Wednesday morning Southern California Gas declared a high-linepack OFO on the Intraday 1 nominations cycle for that day, saying it would assess Buy-Back charges in accordance with its rules and tariffs to customers who delivered into the SoCalGas system more than 110% of their actual gas usage on the OFO day. The OFO will remain in effect through at least Thursday, the LDC said.

Questar said it will be restricting nominations at 11 receipt points on Tuesday because of elevated hydrocarbon dewpoint levels on its Southern System near Greasewood. Questar said would restrict points that have a hydrocarbon dewpoint above 80 degrees and expects the restrictions to continue through the winter months.Pacific Gas and Electric on Monday lifted the systemwide operational flow order that had been in place over the weekend because of high system inventories.El Paso Natural Gas said work on the Gallup compressor station, which has cut about 110 MMcf/d of capacity, should be completed by Wednesday’s gas day.

The Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee unanimously approved the nominations of Philip Moeller and Jon Wellinghoff to become members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Moeller currently is head of Wisconsin-based utility Alliant Energy’s Washington, DC, office. Wellinghoff is an attorney with Nevada-based law firm Beckley Singleton.

Effective with Intraday 1 nominations Wednesday, Dominion rescinded the “Valley Gate” restriction on south-to-north transportation.

In a surprise move, the White House has sent the Senate the nominations of a Colorado attorney and a Washington, DC energy executive to fill the two vacant seats at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. If confirmed by the Senate, this would be the first time since December 2003 that the five-member Commission will be operating at full capacity.

Gulf Coast and Gulf of Mexico gas production rose only slightly Thursday, moving up about 13 MMcf/d to 5,161 MMcf/d, according to gas nominations into the region’s pipelines, Golden, CO-based Bentek Energy reported. Bentek, which collects its information from official pipeline company bulletin boards, said a total of 8,660 MMcf/d of gas production remains shut in onshore and offshore based on a comparison with the amount of gas scheduled to flow on Aug. 26 prior to Hurricane Katrina.

Although Gulf Coast and Gulf of Mexico natural gas production was on the rise Monday, shut-ins still totaled about 10.18 Bcf/d based on scheduled gas production nominations into interstate and intrastate pipelines in Texas and Louisiana, according to a report by Golden, CO-based Bentek Energy, which tracks daily and intraday gas scheduling on the nation’s gas pipeline grid.