Sabine

Florida Gas Transmission did not extend an Overage Alert Day beyond Tuesday.

Cheniere Energy Partners LP, a limited partnership formed by Cheniere Energy Inc. to develop, own and operate the Sabine Pass LNG [liquefied natural gas] receiving terminal currently under construction in western Cameron Parish, LA (see Daily GPI, July 21, 2006), is being spun off as an initial public offering (IPO). Cheniere Energy Partners will be listed on the American Stock Exchange under the symbol “CQP.” The IPO of 12.5 million common units represents 7.6% interest in Cheniere Energy Partners. Of the units being offered, 5.2 million will be offered by Cheniere Energy Partners; the other 7.3 million will be offered by Cheniere LNG Holdings LLC. Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. and Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC will act as joint book-running managers. RBC Capital Markets Corp., Sanders Morris Harris Inc., Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. Inc., Howard Weil Inc., Pritchard Capital Partners LLC and FIG Partners LLC Energy Capital Group will act as co-managers.

While Sabine Pipe Line continues to lift its force majeure on a few more Henry Hub interconnects each day, Cambridge Energy Research Associates’ (CERA) Kenneth Yeasting, director of Eastern North American Energy, wonders if too much emphasis has been placed on the Erath, LA, pipeline hub as the benchmark pricing point for North American natural gas market.

Florida Gas Transmission said Friday it is performing unscheduled maintenance on one of the three compressor units at its Sabine Pass (LA) interconnect with Transco. Starting with the Timely Cycle for Saturday’s gas day, FGT planned to reduce the interconnect capacity to 100,000 MMBtu/d. Current estimates indicate that the unit will be down for about two weeks. The pipeline also informed customers that operational capacity at its ANR interconnect in St. Landry Parish, LA was increased Friday from 125,000 Dth/d to 138,000 Dth/d until further notice. The capacity had been cut from its normal 250,000 MMBtu/d in mid-July due to reduced deliveries from ANR (see Daily GPI, July 16). An Overage Alert Day notice on FGT continued through at least Friday at 25% tolerance for negative imbalances.

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.

Conoco Global Power, Conoco’s power subsidiary, announced plansto build a $250 million, 420 MW cogeneration plant at Dupont’sSabine River Works facility near Orange, TX. Conoco also announceda 10-year tolling agreement with PG&E Energy Trading in whichthe San Francisco-based company will provide the 80-90 MMcf/d ofgas for the plant while gaining the right to dispatch up to 250 MWof the project’s output. The value of the tolling agreement was notdisclosed. Conoco will be the project manager during construction,then give way to Dupont, which will operate the facility when it isfinished. Commercial operations are scheduled to begin in 2001.”This is the largest agreement of this kind PG&E Energy Tradinghas in Texas. What’s more, this energy will be sold into theEntergy power grid, making it even more valuable,” said TonyChovanec, vice president of PG&E Energy Trading’s marketingoperations.