Platform

Columbia Gulf reported completion of repairs to a leak on its 20-inch offshore CNT Line upstream of the B side of the Eugene Island 250 platform. Operators were being allowed Wednesday to resume flow at eight meters — four where Columbia Gulf and Tennessee have connections at the same platforms and another four Tennessee meter locations that were affected when the leak was discovered last week (see Daily GPI, March 24).

Despite adverse weather conditions during the fourth quarter and full year and lower throughput on its gas pipelines, NiSource beat analysts’ earnings estimates and posted higher net income. Income from continuing operations for 2004 was $1.63/share compared to analysts’ estimates of $1.60/share, while quarterly income from continuing operations was 2 cents more than estimates at 59 cents/share.

Despite adverse weather conditions during the fourth quarter and full year and lower throughput on its gas pipelines, NiSource beat analysts’ earnings estimates and posted higher net income. Income from continuing operations for 2004 was $1.63/share compared to analysts’ estimates of $1.60/share, while quarterly income from continuing operations was 2 cents more than estimates at 59 cents/share.

Due to unforeseen riser repairs required at ANR’s Eugene Island 371 platform, production from Green Canyon 237 and Eugene Island 341 and 371 was shut in Tuesday for work that is expected to take about 10 days.

Piping on the Bay Marchand 5 platform offshore southeastern Louisiana was damaged during Hurricane Lili, Tennessee said. A jackup rig is scheduled to be on site Dec. 18 to perform repairs that are expected to last eight days. Physical flow will be suspended Dec. 18-25 at the following meters: Bay Marchand 24, Grand Isle 47, South Timbalier 22, Grand Isle 48J, South Timbalier 54/55E, and South Timbalier 23. A second Bay Marchand meter will be affected, but its block number was not identified.

UBS Warburg Energy, which took over the EnronOnline trading platform earlier this year, has issued no public statements since February, when it completed a deal to obtain Enron Corp.’s exclusive license to the technology to operate the North American natural gas and power trading operations, but sources report that between a one-quarter to one-half — 120 to 250 — of its Houston staff are expected to be laid off.

A day after confirming that a lateral leak near Matagorda Offshore Pipeline System (MOPS) Platform 703 had been repaired and an outage of the Matagorda 703/704/709 receipt point had ended last Saturday (see Daily GPI, Aug. 7), MOPS operator Northern Natural Gas reported Wednesday that a leak had been detected again on the lateral. Matagorda 703/704/709 was taken to zero flow again, affecting 22,000 MMBtu/d. The expected downtime is unknown, NNG said. NNG owner Dynegy did not respond to an inquiry about whether this was a new leak or a recurrence of the old one.

Tennessee reported Wednesday it had discovered a pinhole leak in a valve on its East Cameron 49B compressor platform. While repairs are made Thursday through Sunday, physical receipts will be suspended at 13 upstream meters. Other meters will experience higher than normal pipeline pressure.

Sonat said the offshore Main Pass 72 receipt point was shut in due to a leak on a third-party pipeline between the platform and Sonat’s line. A crew was on-site Friday to investigate the leak. Due to this work, Sonat was not scheduling gas from the point effective with Friday’s evening cycle until further notice.