Shippers

Williams’ Northwest Pipeline GP is holding a binding open season for its Sundance Trail expansion. Shippers can contract for long-term firm service from receipt points near the Greasewood and Meeker Hubs in the Piceance Basin to delivery points at the Opal Hub in Wyoming or elect other receipt/delivery points within the Greasewood/Meeker Hub-to-Opal Hub path.

Williams’ Northwest Pipeline GP is holding a binding open season for its Sundance Trail expansion. Shippers can contract for long-term firm service from receipt points near the Greasewood and Meeker Hubs in the Piceance Basin to delivery points at the Opal Hub in Wyoming or elect other receipt/delivery points within the Greasewood/Meeker Hub-to-Opal Hub path.

To encourage shippers to run positive imbalances because of dwindling linepack during an especially severe cold snap in Western Canada, NOVA has reset its imbalance tolerance range to 0/+4.

El Paso, which had warned shippers of a potential Pack Strained Operating Condition (SOC) Nov. 4 and said last Friday the warning remained in effect (see Daily GPI, Nov. 12), made the SOC a reality Monday. It declared a systemwide Pack SOC for the Nov. 13-20 gas days, setting the imbalance tolerance initially at 10% but saying it will reduce the tolerance if conditions do not sufficiently improve. El Paso cited “milder weather than usual for this time of year” as well as a planned outage of its Washington Ranch storage facility that was to have begun Monday and run through Nov. 19. However, due to “extremely high linepack” impacting its system, El Paso said it had delayed the Washington Ranch work to Tuesday through Nov. 20.

What’s already a common provision in globally based liquefied natural gas (LNG) contracts — flexible destination rights that allow shippers to reroute their cargoes to higher paying ports — within 10 years will be included in all LNG deals. Most of the contracts for the gas slated to go through Sempra Energy’s new North Baja California terminal that opens early next year in Mexico already have these so-called “economic dispatch” provisions. This development was part of what a panel told participants last Tuesday at the LDC Forum Rockies & West conference in Los Angeles.

An agreement in principle has been reached at FERC in the complaint filed against Southwest Gas Storage by shippers on affiliate Panhandle Eastern Pipe Line and other parties, which accused the company of charging “unjust and unreasonable” rates for jurisdictional storage services.

An agreement in principle has been reached at FERC in the complaint case filed against Southwest Gas Storage by shippers on affiliate Panhandle Eastern Pipe Line and other parties, which accused the company of charging “unjust and unreasonable” rates for jurisdictional storage services.

El Paso Natural Gas and a large number of shippers on its pipeline have called on FERC again to quickly approve an offer of settlement that has been pending at the agency for several months.

Northwest notified shippers of a Declared Deficiency Period at the Muddy Creek South Constraint Point that took effect Thursday in connection with an anomaly investigation just south of Muddy Creek Compressor Station (see Daily GPI, Aug. 16). Primary firm nomination requests through the constraint point have exceeded the available capacity of 160,000 Dth/d, Northwest said. Based on a design capacity of 513,000 Dth/d, the Daily Deficiency Volume is 353,000 Dth/d, it added. The Deficiency Period was expected to last for a maximum of 72 hours. The Deficiency Period at the Muddy Creek South Constraint Point allowed the pipeline to end a separate Deficiency Period at Caldwell Compressor Station even though a unit inspection at Caldwell will continue through Thursday.