River

Support for a Mackenzie River Valley natural gas pipeline through the Northwest Territories made the news again last week, as aboriginal interests — considered key to any plan — began signaling their approval to begin construction of a pipe through their lands. While the producers group on Tuesday touted the support of the Acho Dene Koe in its carefully detailed memorandum of understanding (MOU) to back a C$3 billion pipe, still another group, composed of development corporations and businesses — no producers — emerged on Thursday offering a 100% aboriginal ownership of any pipe built.

Kern River Gas Transmission appears to have pulled off a coup in the competition to serve new merchant electric generation loads in California’s frenetic race to build new in-state power plants in its plans to construct a 32-mile, 24-inch-diameter pipeline extension directly to the 750-MW High Desert Power Plant now under construction in the open spaces about 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles.

PG&E said due to pipe replacement maintenance on the Baja path, the 300 MMcf/d Daggett interconnect with Kern River Gas Transmission (KRGT) will be shut in for 20 days starting June 10. No nominations will be processed for the KRGT Receipt/Delivery Points for gas days June 10 – 30. Any nominations already submitted through INSIDEtracc will be cut to zero for this time frame, PG&E said. For further details, call (800) 343-4743.

American Electric Power (AEP) and the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) last Wednesday said that they have reached a joint development agreement designed to improve the capacity and reliability of electric transmission systems in South and West Texas.

American Electric Power (AEP) and the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) yesterday said that they have reached a joint development agreement designed to improve the capacity and reliability of electric transmission systems in South and West Texas.

As it had advised earlier (see Daily GPI, April 20), Sonat said Friday that maintenance on facilities at Logansport, LA on the Sabine River border with Texas required that upstream production be shut in effective Saturday (April 21). The work, affecting 59 receipt points in the Logansport and Joaquin Fields, is expected to run at least through the end of April, Sonat said. The pipeline found it unnecessary to issue a systemwide OFO Type 6 for Saturday, but said the probability for long imbalances was “too close to call” for Sunday and Monday.

Citing “excessive banking [of gas] over the last several days,” Kern River said Tuesday it is currently operating with high linepack that would negatively impact maintenance set for April 24-25. “It is imperative that operators take delivery of quantities that are scheduled immediately,” the pipeline said, adding that it will take corrective action if banking continues to be a problem. The maintenance, involving turbine inspections at the Muddy Creek and Fillmore Stations and valve replacement at the Opal Plant, was postponed from an original March schedule (see Daily GPI, March 9).

Mississippi River Transmission (MRT) is considering constructionof a new pipeline lateral from Horseshoe Lake, in Madison County,IL, to a connection with Natural Gas Pipeline Company of America inClinton County, IL. The new line would be designed to provide firmtransportation capacity of 230,000 Dth/d.

About 1 Bcf/d of flow on El Paso’s South Mainline downstream ofPecos River (NM) Station ceased after the pipeline exploded earlySaturday, killing 10 people and seriously injuring two others at anearby campsite (see related reports:wrap-up, politics).