Notified

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. late last Friday notified the California Public Utilities Commission that what it called “skyrocketing” wholesale natural gas costs nationally were causing wholesale electricity prices to spike and the result might be the need for added retail power utility rates in the state. PG&E’s utility estimated that the higher gas costs could translate into an added $243 million in wholesale power costs, or a 2.5% hike, by January.

Columbia Gulf notified operators Monday at nine Eugene Island platforms where it and/or Tennessee has meters (see Daily GPI, Sept. 19) that they must shut in and take nominations to zero immediately in order to allow Columbia Gulf to make repairs to a leak on its 20-inch line in the Eugene Island 264 area. “Operators should not begin flowing gas until further notice,” Columbia Gulf said.

Florida Power & Light (FPL) has notified Florida regulators it will show a significant under-recovery of fuel costs for power generation this year due to escalating natural gas and fuel oil prices and has proposed spreading the cost recovery payments of $579 million over the next two years to lessen the burden on ratepayers who also will see increased fuel costs for 2006.

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 ANR said it will continue to allow DDS/MBS injections “provided that an equal or greater amount of gas is withdrawn” prior to Nov. 1.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.”

With an emphasis on its electric utility operations, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. notified the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) Monday that it intends to file for a $654 million rate increase later this year to be effective in 2007.

Entergy Services Inc., on behalf of the Entergy affiliates conducting power sales in the Entergy control area, notified FERC that it was withdrawing the Entergy affiliates’ pending request for renewal of market-based rate authority for transactions in the Entergy control area [ER91-569-023, et al].

Southern Natural said it was notified that the Enterprise Processing Plant is being shut down. Southern also is shutting down its Toca Compressor Station and has declared a force majeure. Pressures declined to the point that Southern essentially has no gas flow through the Toca facility. Southern is requesting that all shippers/poolers verify that their supply is flowing and nominate their demand to match their anticipated supply. Southern is not accepting any nominations for interruptible services that rely on storage (ISS and Park withdrawals) and will not be accepting any makeup due shipper.

EnCana Corp. has notified the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that all of its U.S. subsidiaries that are engaged in natural gas purchase and sale transactions are reporting transaction information to index publishers. The company previously had told FERC that its marketing division was reporting, but its storage unit was not. EnCana said that as of May 28 it had implemented a uniform, automated process for reporting transaction information across all its U.S. subsidiaries.

Sonat reported being notified by plant operator Enterprise Operating Partners LLC that the Toca II processing plant in southeast Louisiana for 10 days of maintenance beginning Monday. Sonat said it would post new PTR (plant thermal reduction) percentages shortly. The pipeline said it expects a richer gas stream, mainly on its south system, as a result of the outage, but does not anticipate any gas quality problems at this time.