Operation

After chopping its power marketing staff in half this summer, Boise-based IDACORP Inc. last week decided to throw in the towel on natural gas marketing. It had plenty of company last week in that regard with El Paso and CMS also indicating they were calling it quits in trading (see related stories). IDACORP will exit natural gas trading operations by the end of the first quarter of 2003, affecting a small Houston staff.

A pigging operation on Matagorda Offshore Pipeline System from Wednesday evening through Friday resulted in very high liquid levels, and thus scheduled volumes from MOPS were reduced to zero for the gas days of Friday through Sunday. The action cut deliveries of about 100,000 MMBtu/d into South Texas interconnects with Florida Gas Transmission, Gulf South and Tejas Gas Pipeline, MOPS operator Northern Natural Gas said.

After chopping its power marketing staff in half this summer (see Power Market Today, June 24), Boise-based IDACORP Inc. on Tuesday decided to throw in the towel on natural gas marketing. The company also said it will terminate efforts to pursue a midstream natural gas development business. It will exit natural gas trading operations by the end of the first quarter of 2003, affecting a small Houston staff.

With more and more natural gas-fired plants going into operation around the country, pipelines must master a balancing act of serving traditional local distribution companies (LDC), while catering to the new power plant on the block.

With more and more natural gas-fired plants going into operation around the country, pipelines must master a balancing act of serving traditional local distribution companies (LDC), while catering to the new power plant on the block.

Matagorda Offshore Pipeline System completed a pigging operation that caused a shutdown of the pipeline last week due to excess liquids (see Daily GPI, Oct. 23). The outage affected flows of about 115 MMcf/d. MOPS delivery nominations were being accepted again Friday for intraday scheduling.

Powder River Basin Gas Corp. (PRBG) said Tuesday it has signed a letter of intent to acquire CKG Energy’s New Mexico operation in the Tucumcari Field with an estimated 500 Bcf in reserves.

Burlington Resources Inc. said last week it has completed and begun operation on the Train III expansion project at the Lost Cabin Gas Plant in the Madden Field in Fremont County, WY. The company said total volumes of gas flowing through the plant are currently being increased in phases with the ultimate goal of reaching full design capacity of 310 MMcfe/d by next year, following completion of planned drilling in the field.

Subsea well operation and construction specialist, Cal Dive International Inc., said Wednesday that four tropical weather systems have “significantly” reduced expected utilization of the company’s fleet of marine construction vessels in the last six weeks of the third quarter. As a result, Cal Dive said it now estimates third quarter earnings per share in a range of 8 to 11 cents in contrast to First Call consensus estimates of 23 cents.