With most of North America under siege from extreme cold and winter storms that caused power outages, disrupted transport to work or school and resulted in numerous flight cancellations, the cash gas market responded with a continuing ascent of prices at nearly all points Wednesday. Several gains were measured in triple digits in the Northeast and Gulf Coast.
Outages
Articles from Outages
Gulf Gas Production Stalls, Some Progress at Henry Hub
Natural gas output in the Gulf of Mexico remained at around 20% all week, with the Minerals Management Service (MMS) reporting Friday production outages equalling 79.4% — with shut-in production totaling 7.94 Bcf/d. The Sabine Pipe Line LLC’s force majeure also continued in effect for the Henry Hub gas delivery point, but some progress was reported.
Cuts in Price-Boosting Cooling Load Expected
The cash market was still finding enough power generation load — prompted by a combination of warm temperatures and a spate of nuclear plant outages, both intentional and unscheduled — to eke out further generally small price gains at a majority of points Wednesday. But El Paso-San Juan quotes actually fell by 2-3 cents and several other points, nearly all of them in the West, were flat to barely higher. Gains ran as big as about 20 cents.
FERC OKs Duke Energy California Energy Crisis Global Settlement
FERC last Tuesday issued an order accepting a global settlement reached between Duke Energy, several California parties and Commission staff resolving matters stemming from the 2000-2001 California energy crisis as they relate to Duke.
Transportation Notes
Florida Gas Transmission emerged unscathed from wreckage of Hurricane Frances. The company reported no compressor station outages and no lingering operational impact. However it did call an overage alert day on Tuesday with a 25% tolerance. Gas demand was greatly reduced for on Saturday and Sunday. But on Monday demand increased significantly after Frances moved over the Florida Panhandle. As a result of the increase in demand, FGTs linepack became very low. FGT alerted customers in its market area of the overage alert. “Please closely monitor your scheduled quantities versus actual burn quantities,” the pipeline told shippers.
Transportation Notes
ANR said Saturday the riser work at its Eugene Island 371 platform had been completed and the associated outages at that platform, Eugene Island 341 and Green Canyon 237 had been lifted. The work ended several days ahead of the 10 days that ANR had projected when it began last week (see Daily GPI, July 30).
Dynegy Leads Sector Up After Better-Than-Expected Quarterly Earnings
With an upbeat conference call and better-than-expected earnings for the first quarter, Dynegy Inc. swung to a profit for the first time in over a year, and further encouraged investors that it now expects to surpass 2003 guidance. The sector-leading stock soared, with more than 34 million shares exchanging hands, sending Dynegy up 25% to close at $4.70 — its highest level since July 18, 2002, when it closed at $4.50.
Transportation Notes
Northern Border said “concurrent unplanned compressor station outages upstream of Ventura” Monday evening prompted it to place a firm-only scheduling restriction on the 42-inch pipeline segment (Monchy/Port of Morgan to Ventura) for the gas days of Wednesday and today. Gas Control will re-evaluate conditions this morning to determine if the constraint will be lifted Friday.
Transportation Notes
El Paso revised its schedule for North Mainline capacity reductions caused by continuing outages of Window Rock Station’s 5A and 6B units along with work on Line 1200 between Williams and Seligman Stations, Navajo Station inspections ordered by the federal Department of Transportation, and Leupp C and D Station modifications. The new dates and volume cuts (in MMcf/d) through the rest of this month are: Sept. 18-19, 150; Sept. 20, 300; Sept. 21-23, 55; Sept. 24-25, 65; Sept. 26-27, 170; and Sept. 28-30, 155. El Paso also postponed Line 1300 pigging between the Roswell and Caprock stations until Sept. 25-28, when San Juan Crossover capacity will be reduced by 50 MMcf/d.
Transportation Notes
As a result of compression outages at Grand Chenier Station on the southwest Louisiana coast, volumes that ANR can receive there from HIOS and the West Cameron near-shore blocks was cut by about 40 MMcf/d Wednesday until further notice.