Preservation

The Florida Senate’s Environmental Preservation and Conservation Committee will take up a study of the effects of offshore drilling, according to Senate President Jeff Atwater (R-Palm Beach).

Citing a forecast of much colder temperatures in the Pacific Northwest in the next several weeks, Northwest said it will “ensure the preservation of its Jackson Prairie [storage] balancing account” by declaring a Stage II (8% tolerance) Overrun Entitlement for Receiving Parties on the Wenatchee Lateral and a Stage III Overrun Entitlement (13% tolerance ) for all other Receiving Parties located north of the Kemmerer (WY) Compressor Station. The entitlements become effective Tuesday until further notice. Northwest said it will continue to cut alternate gas as necessary to preserve primary firm service or to move balancing gas from Questar’s Clay Basin storage facility to Jackson Prairie where appropriate, and it encouraged customers “to secure adequate supplies from Canadian supply sources, particularly Sumas, during cold periods in order to avoid entitlements and OFOs.”

Alberta regulators concluded last week that they must force the shut in of about 123 MMcf/d of natural gas production in the Athabasca Oil Sands Area on July 1. The total is about half what the regulators originally estimated was needed in order to preserve future recovery of bitumen from an oil sands region in northeastern Alberta.

A total of about 123 MMcf/d of natural gas production from the Wabiskaw-McMurray formation in the Athabasca Oil Sands Area of northeastern Alberta will be shut in on July 1 by order of the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board (AEUB). The shut-ins are designed to preserve 25.5 billion barrels of potentially recoverable crude bitumen, representing about 14.6% of Alberta’s remaining bitumen reserves.