Operation

Train 6 at Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Co. Ltd. 3 (Ras Laffan 3) has begun operation at Ras Laffan Industrial City in Qatar, ExxonMobil Corp. said Wednesday. However, the company is being tight-lipped on where the liquefied natural gas (LNG) output might be delivered.

The Arkoma Connector pipeline, a joint venture of MarkWest Energy Partners and ArcLight Capital Partners, went into operation in mid-July with little fanfare. But Denver-based MarkWest plans to put the focus on its new pipeline during its earnings conference Tuesday. Asked if Arkoma Connector was running at full capacity yet, MarkWest Treasurer Dan Campbell said, “We haven’t disclosed that,” but noted that the company would talk more about the pipeline’s operations at the earnings conference. The pipeline extends from the outlet of a treating plant in northeast Oklahoma 50 miles in a southeasterly direction to near Bennington, OK, where it connects with the Midcontinent Express and Gulf Crossing systems. Arkoma Connector, which was approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in late 2008, has the capability to deliver 625,000 Dth/d out of the Woodford Shale area to the Bennington area (see Daily GPI, Nov. 14, 2008).

Texas Eastern said an unplanned outage at its Five Points (OH) Compressor Station (see Daily GPI, May 15) has been resolved and the station was returned to normal operation Friday. All restrictions on its 24-inch diameter system in the area were removed.

Mirroring the performance of the industry as a whole, XTO Energy Inc. said Wednesday it is pulling larger amounts of gas out of the ground even as it trims the number of rigs it has in operation.

MarkWest Energy Partners and ArcLight Capital Partners have formed a joint venture for the construction and operation of the Arkoma Connector, a 50-mile interstate gas pipeline that would allow producers in the Woodford Shale area of Oklahoma to interconnect with the Midcontinent Express and Gulf Crossing pipeline systems for delivery of their gas to eastern markets.

FERC has approved construction and operation of a 24-inch diameter pipeline by Northwest Pipeline GP in Colorado to carry gas from the Piceance Basin to Northwest’s on-system and off-system markets, Northwest parent Williams said Monday.

El Paso expanded a location-specific Strained Operation Condition (SOC) due to drafting-caused low linepack that it had declared Saturday to a systemwide SOC Sunday. The imbalance tolerance was set initially at 10%, El Paso said, but will be reduced “if conditions do not sufficiently improve.” System linepack had fallen below 7,100 MMcf “with continued takes in excess of scheduled deliveries. Additionally, the San Juan supply basin continues to experience underperformance issues related to the cold weather with an approximate shortfall of 400 MMcf at the present time [Sunday] and [El Paso] is beginning to see underperformance in the Permian supply basin as well. Performance caps have been placed and will continue to be placed on underperforming supplies.” Its Washington Ranch storage facility was on maximum withdrawal, the pipeline said. Interruptible Storage Service was suspended Sunday until further notice.

FERC has approved a contingency plan filed by Millennium Pipeline Co. LLC that would allow Millennium to begin operation this month even if the pipeline’s East Branch horizontal directional drill (HDD) is not completed in time to meet Millennium’s proposed Dec. 15 in-service date.

FERC has approved a contingency plan filed by Millennium Pipeline Co. LLC that would allow Millennium to begin operation this month even if the pipeline’s East Branch horizontal directional drill (HDD) is not completed in time to meet Millennium’s proposed Dec. 15 in-service date.