Noted

Pacific Gas & Electric issued a Stage 2 high-inventory OFO for Saturday, setting penalties at $1/Dth for exceeding a 5% tolerance on positive daily imbalances.

The CEO of an Anchorage, AK-based energy services firm, VECO Corp., and another company official pleaded guilty last Monday to bribery and conspiracy charges arising from a federal probe into public corruption of Alaska politicians.

FERC Chairman Joseph Kelliher said the agency will continue processing the applications for two rival liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal projects in Maine despite growing opposition by Canadian officials to LNG tankers traversing their waters.

FERC Chairman Joseph Kelliher said the agency will continue processing the applications for two rival liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal projects in Maine despite growing opposition by Canadian officials to LNG tankers traversing their waters.

CIG noted Friday that unseasonably cold weather had moved into its Front Range market region and was predicted to continue into this week. “With the high market demands anticipated for this period combined with high firm transportation load factors, CIG is concerned that our ability to absorb imbalances related to underdeliveries at receipt points or overdeliveries at delivery points will be limited to a significant degree,” it said. “Therefore, CIG expects operators to manage their confirmations to match flow rates to scheduled quantities, factoring in freeze-offs and other conditions as necessary, particularly while the cold weather impacts CIG’s field and pipeline operations.” At locations that are not flowing at scheduled rates, the pipeline plans to place underperformance caps during the scheduling process to reduce nominations to match such flow rates. No Notice shippers should anticipate that CIG will be able to support a maximum of 100,000 Dth/d of authorized delivery overruns, it said.

Kern River noted that temperatures continue to be forecast as much colder than normal in all of its supply and market areas for the Jan. 11-15 period. “In the event physical supply is impacted due to the cold weather and receipt point operators are unable to delivery their scheduled quantity, Kern River will likely request that the receipt point operator reduce their confirmation to match their physical deliveries to Kern River,” the pipeline said Wednesday. “If a shipper’s nominations are reduced by a receipt point operator, that shipper should be prepared to find alternate supply. In the event a shipper is unable to find alternate supply, that shipper’s affected market will be expected to take physical delivery equal to their scheduled quantity.”

Pacific Gas & Electric did not extend a systemwide high-inventory OFO beyond Wednesday.

Northern Natural Gas noted Wednesday that like many other storage operators, it continues to experience high storage inventories. “While IDD shippers have brought their inventory balances down considerably this month, Northern will continue to have limited capacity for IDD volumes for the remainder of the summer season,” it said. “Northern needs to protect its storage capability in order to not jeopardize its ability to meet firm storage daily and inventory requirements.” Thus the pipeline gave notice that its Positive IDD Storage Inventory Allocation will be extended from July 31 to Oct. 31. Shippers whose IDD account balance at the end of the April 21 gas day was negative must have a balance no greater than zero on Oct. 31, Northern said. Those with positive balances at the end of the April 21 gas day must have a balance no greater than that on Oct. 31. Any IDD volumes that exceed those limits will become the pipeline’s property. Northern emphasized that this allocation process does not limit a customer’s ability to continue using IDD for the purpose of providing an interruptible daily and monthly balancing service. See the bulletin board for other details of the notice.

With a backdrop of unhappy local citizens and a river preservationist group gunning for any liquefied natural gas (LNG) proposed terminals, NorthernStar Natural Gas, Inc., noted late last week that the regulatory clock at FERC now officially is ticking on its proposal to build an LNG receiving terminal at Bradwood Landing, OR, 38 miles up the Columbia River from the Pacific Ocean. Meanwhile, the opposing resolve of the Columbia Riverkeeper, a partner with Astoria, OR-based Columbia RiverVision, has intensified.