storage

CIG said it had completed repairs to the Totem Storage Field dehydration facility and would complete commissioning operations there Sunday (March 7). The associated force majeure will be terminated Monday, CIG said, and a restoration of full withdrawal operations will be implemented then.

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

CIG reported that during the final stages of repairs to its Totem Storage Field dehydration facility it encountered additional issues that prevented it from restoring full withdrawal capacity Thursday as previously planned (see Daily GPI, Dec. 17). Effective with Intraday 1 (Cycle 3) nominations for Thursday, Totem withdrawals were being reduced to the prorated scheduled quantity, CIG said, and any additional withdrawal nominations for subsequent cycles would be cut to zero until further notice. Injections remain unaffected by this outage, CIG noted.

Southern California Gas said Friday the loss of 300 MMcf/d of storage injection capacity due to emergency turbine repairs at its Aliso Canyon facility had ended as expected.

Pipeline customers who failed to get lower rates on Panhandle Eastern Pipe Lines’ Southwest Gas Storage service by filing their own Natural Gas Act (NGA) Section 5 complaint [RP07-34] several years ago, nevertheless may have laid the groundwork and inspired the strategy for FERC’s surprise action last week, calling for formal investigations of three pipelines for possible over-recovery in their rates (see related story).

Pipeline customers who failed to get lower rates on Panhandle Eastern Pipe Lines’ Southwest Gas Storage service by filing their own Natural Gas Act (NGA) Section 5 complaint [RP07-34] several years ago, nevertheless may have laid the groundwork and inspired the strategy for a FERC surprise action last week that calls for formal investigations of three pipelines for possible over-recovery in their rates.

Due to forecasts of mild Southeast weather, Southern Natural Gas cited projections of high storage injection requirements during the weekend in announcing that an OFO Type 6 for long imbalances would be in effect on its system Saturday until further notice. Tiered imbalance penalties will be assessed to shippers exceeding allocated deliveries by 2% or more (those with long imbalances of less than 2% or 200 Dth/d will not be penalized).

Southern California Gas allowed a high-linepack OFO that had been in effect for eight days to lapse Saturday, saying constraints on storage injection capacity had eased.

Citing “historically high storage inventory levels and projected high injection requirements for the upcoming weekend,” Southern Natural Gas said Friday it was implementing an OFO Type 6 for long imbalances Saturday until further notice (although it said in another notice that the OFO was unlikely to continue Monday). Tiered imbalance penalties were set for positive imbalances exceeding 2%, or 200 Dth, whichever was greater.