Protection

Citing forecasts of “extremely warm weather” for its service area, MRT said a System Protection Warning (SPW) will take effect at the start of Tuesday’s gas day until further notice. Under the SPW, all shippers must balance receipts and deliveries, and MRT said it will not allow imbalances that result in an overdelivery of supplies into its system.

Citing anticipated cold weather conditions, MRT issued a System Protection Warning that took effect Saturday until further notice. All transportation customers are required to balance receipts and deliveries, MRT said, and it will not allow any imbalances that result in an underdelivery of supplies.

MRT said a System Protection Warning initiated Dec. 31, in which the pipeline said it would be unable to schedule volumes that resulted in a net daily long imbalance position through Tuesday, will be lifted at the start of Wednesday’s gas day.

MRT said it will end at the start of Tuesday’s gas day a System Protection Warning that was implemented Sunday.

Citing cold weather forecasts, MRT said a System Protection Warning would go into effect at the start of Sunday’s gas day. The following conditions will apply during the SPW: MRT will not schedule any mainline IT or AOR volumes for delivery north of Glendale, AR; firm volumes will be limited to their primary direction of flow; MRT is not accepting short imbalance positions in the market zone; and shippers may not nominate supply from existing long imbalance positions in the market zone. The pipeline said it currently has capacity available on the East Line, so in order to avoid OFOs, shippers who were relying on mainline IT, AOR and/or imbalance volumes were encouraged to resource supply to the East Line or reduce applicable delivery volumes.

With FERC scheduled Wednesday to weigh in on the “safe harbor” protection request made by the Committee of Chief Risk Officers (CCRO) on behalf of its Energy Data Hub (see Daily GPI, June14), more parties are voicing their objections and support on the issue to the Commission. In addition to safe harbor protections for the Energy Data Hub and those that report to the hub, the CCRO requested assurances that FERC will not use the Energy Data Hub as a target for investigations by the Commission into transaction data by the participating companies.

In a System Protection Warming declared Monday, MRT said that due to warm weather in its service area, effective with the start of Tuesday’s gas day it will not accept any long imbalance positions through the end of March.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Friday announced the settlement of their landmark Clean Air Act case alleging that Ohio Edison Co., a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp., violated the New Source Review (NSR) provisions of the Clean Air Act at the W.H. Sammis Station, a coal-fired power plant in Stratton, OH. The pollution controls and other measures required by the consent decree are expected to cost approximately $1.1 billion.

High natural gas prices were cited by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as one of the primary reasons that total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions rose by 0.6% in 2003 from 2002 levels. Rising gas prices caused electric power producers to switch from natural gas to burning more coal.