Reversed

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia last weekreversed and remanded a FERC order rejecting Transcontinental GasPipe Line’s bid to levy two-part, “firm-to-the-wellhead” (FTW)rates on certain production-area customers served by the line.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia last weekreversed and remanded a FERC order rejecting Transcontinental GasPipe Line Corp’s bid to levy two-part, “firm-to-the-wellhead” (FTW)rates on certain production-area customers served by the line.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th District has reversed andremanded an order in which FERC asserted jurisdiction over two KNWattenberg Transmission laterals that provide connecting servicefrom Colorado Interstate Gas to two food-processing plants in FortMorgan, CO., thus bypassing the municipal gas provider.

Mojave Pipeline reversed an earlier bulletin board posting (see Daily GPI, June 16), emphasizing that itwould “not” shut in part of its West Lateral Thursday and cause theshut-ins of “17Z”-labeled interconnects with Chevron, Mobil, Shell andTexaco. However, Mojave said, a maintenance shut-in of the Oxy 17Zinterconnect was to proceed as scheduled Thursday and today.

For the second trading session in a row, early selling pressurewas reversed in afternoon trading allowing the market to close nearits daily high. The July contract notched a $2.325 low both Fridayand Monday, but settled back up above $2.37 both days. Evenestimated volume figures were similar with yesterday’s 43,630falling just short of Friday’s 45,070 mark.

The Texas Supreme Court let stand an appeals court decision thatreversed a $204 million damage award against a subsidiary ofMitchell Energy & Development Corp. in the 1996 “Bartlett” casein which plaintiffs alleged the company contaminated water wells inWise County, TX. “Friday’s announcement by the Texas Supreme Court,and recent decisions at the district court level, are significantvictories because these cases clearly establish the fact thatMitchell is not the cause of any water quality problems in NorthTexas,” said Tom Battle, Mitchell general counsel.