Required

Due to a required but unplanned pipeline inspection, ANR restricted its segment between the E.G. Hill and Custer Compressor Stations in the Southwest Gathering Area to 200 MMcf/d Wednesday. “At this time, it is anticipated this restriction will be in place through the weekend or until more information becomes available,” ANR said. Based on recent nominations, it expected that the reduction would result in the curtailment of nominations associated with IT and Firm Catalog Receipt Points in the affected area.

Only the two El Paso-San Juan pools and Tennessee Zone 6 in New England failed to continue rising Thursday. All other points were up anywhere from a nickel to a little more than half a dollar as the cash market derived support from a strong prior-day screen, another net weekly storage withdrawal being reported and high heat across the southern U.S. slowly spreading northward.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Friday said it received a petition from The Williams Cos. asking the agency to reopen and modify an order that required the company to provide pipeline capacity to Kinder Morgan Operating LP, an operator of propane terminals, and to any competing pipeline wishing to connect to Williams’ natural gas processing plants.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is taking public comments on a required expansion of several existing gas pipeline corridors out of the Pinedale, WY, area. Multiple gas pipelines have been planned and several corridors will have to be expanded to support gas production growth, BLM said.

Trunkline said that as part of post-hurricane inspections required by the federal Minerals Management Service, it discovered that its lateral offshore Louisiana from Ewing Bank 305 to Grand Isle 82 apparently shifted from its pre-storm location. “At this time, Trunkline is unaware of any specific damage to the lateral,” the pipeline continued. “However, the nature of the observations requires that Trunkline reduce pressure on the lateral until further information can be obtained and analyzed.” Trunkline said it cut production on the lateral to zero, and until further notice no nominations are being accepted from Stone Energy’s Ewing Bank 305 platform.

Seatbelts for natural gas futures traders should have been required once again on Friday, as the November contract copied its roller coaster-like movements from Thursday. Despite being as high as $14.35 in the afternoon, the prompt month ended up settling at $13.921, down 27.5 cents on the day but $1.234 higher than the contract’s previous week’s close.

FERC last week revoked market-based rates for Duke Power in its control area and required the company to provide default cost-based rates. The action came after a “careful review” of generation market power issues, noted outgoing FERC Chairman Patrick Wood.

In the first of several required regulatory filings, Cinergy Corp. and Duke Energy on Wednesday filed an application with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) that seeks approval of their merger agreement by the end of this year. Duke announced the $9 billion merger last month (see NGI, May 16).

Columbia Gulf said Eugene Island platforms 331B, 314B, 314A, 271, 338A, 294A, 315A and 316A were required to shut in Thursday and nominations for those locations were taken to zero until further notice due to a leak discovered Wednesday on the 20-inch CNT Line upstream of the B side of Eugene Island 250 (see Daily GPI, April 14). Columbia Gulf has meters at the first four platforms, while Tennessee has meters at all eight. Declaring it a force majeure event, Tennessee said it would allow shippers’ nominations at the affected meters to remain in place for Thursday’s gas day, but they would be reduced to zero Friday. It estimated the production impact from the outage at 29,500 Dth/d. A Columbia Gulf spokesman said the leak is in the same general area as one that was repaired last month (see Daily GPI, March 31) but is different.