Reduced

Questar has scheduled maintenance at Fidlar Compressor Station for Feb. 22-24. The ML 80 scheduling point will be reduced to 200,000 Dth/d on those gas days. Based on current nominations, this represents a 90% reduction to flexed nominations, Questar said. “As nominations are realigned, it is possible that primary to primary nominations will be affected at the ML 80 scheduling point and the ML 104 and Rifle scheduling points may need to be used,” it added.

Pipeline damage, third-party processing limitations and reduced shipments from some offshore producers following the massive hurricanes three months ago still prevent about 15% of El Paso Corp.’s natural gas pipeline flows, the company reported Thursday. Total flows on El Paso’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline, Southern Natural Gas and ANR Pipeline systems remained down as of Dec. 16 by 770 MMcf/d out of the 4.97 Bcf/d flowing before Hurricane Katrina struck Aug. 29.

Hurricane disruptions in the third quarter reduced domestic natural gas production about 6% sequentially from the second quarter and about 6% compared to 3Q2004, but excluding the storm losses, the trendline in U.S. output for the next few years is flat, according to energy analysts with the Gerdes Group.

As previewed last week, Bellevue, WA-based Puget Energy, holding company for combination utility Puget Sound Energy (PSE), reported reduced third quarter earnings Tuesday. Net income from continuing operations totaled $5.9 million, or 6 cents/share, compared with $9.4 million, or 9 cents/share, for the same period in 2004, the company said.

Natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico was up 2% on Wednesday, with shut-ins from Hurricane Katrina reduced to 3.518 Bcf/d, down from Tuesday’s 3.720 Bcf/d, according to the latest report from the Minerals Management Service (MMS). The shut-in gas represents 35.18% of daily gas production in the Gulf, normally 10 Bcf/d.

Abnormally mild U.S. weather over the past year has reduced natural gas demand enough to lead to a modestly oversupplied market, according to Raymond James analysts, who warned for the second time in two weeks that gas prices could hit $10/Mcf by the end of this summer.

Williams said that subsidiary Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line reduced the cost of its Leidy, PA-to-Long Island, NY expansion project by about $47 million through a reverse open season and based on market interest in the project. The expansion is designed to add 100,000 Dth/d in firm transportation volumes to its pipeline in November 2007. Transco has been able to reduce the estimated capital cost of the project to $103 million from about $150 million.

Stung by reduced demand, natural gas distributor Nicor Inc. reported an 18% decline in second quarter profit on Monday. The company also revealed that it has terminated four employees in connection with their involvement in “potentially fraudulent” conduct in its performance-based rate (PBR) gas supply program that may have violated Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rules.

The months of June and July were the “low water mark” for Enterprise Products Partners LP’s natural gas liquids (NGLs) business — especially for ethane — but CEO O.S. “Dub” Andras said Monday he was “encouraged and cautiously optimistic” in recent activity for liquids.