storage

Northwest cautioned shippers Thursday that its efforts to avoid declaring an OFO through the Kemmerer (WY) Compressor Station by using its limited storage flexibility at the Jackson Prairie and Clay Basin facilities are weakening because its Jackson Prairie inventory has been depleted to less than 1.1 Bcf. “North-flow firm scheduled volumes through Kemmerer continue to be above design capacity and Northwest is starting to see some customer drafting” north of Kemmerer, the pipeline said. To protect its Jackson Prairie account balance, Northwest said it may declare customer-specific or system entitlements for overruns for receiving parties north of Kemmerer. Northwest also asked customers who owe gas to the pipeline on their receiving party contracts to arrange paybacks of the imbalance as soon as possible. “Northwest will continue to cut alternate gas as necessary to preserve primary firm service or to move balancing gas from Clay Basin to Jackson Prairie where appropriate, and encourages customers to secure adequate supplies from Canadian supply sources, particularly Sumas, during cold periods in order to avoid entitlements and OFOs,” it said.

Proposed “firm access rights” (FAR) for wholesale gas customers on the Sempra Energy utilities’ natural gas transmission and storage system is far from perfect, according to critics, particularly those planning to import regasified LNG into the California market.

Proposed “firm access rights” (FAR) for wholesale gas customers on the Sempra Energy utilities’ natural gas transmission and storage system is far from perfect, according to critics, particularly those planning to import regasified LNG into the California market.

At the start of Wednesday’s gas day MRT will lift the System Protection Warning placed into effect Nov. 23.

Southern California Gas said Monday that due to high inventories in its storage fields, it had reduced injection capacity by 60 MMcf/d. Then in a Tuesday update it said another 17 MMcf/d of injection was lost because of electrical repairs to the No. 8 main unit at its Playa Del Rey field.

The former chief of the American Electric Power’s (AEP) Gulf trading desk agreed to pay a $350,000 fine to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to settle charges that he directed AEP natural gas traders to submit misleading or knowingly inaccurate information to two Platts’ publications, Gas Daily and Inside FERC’s Gas Market Report for almost two years (see Daily GPI, Sept. 21, 2005).

A day after it made regulatory filings to spin off its sprawling gas transmission, storage and field services business, including Ontario utility Union Gas, as a separate company, Duke Energy on Friday named an executive team for the new corporation. It also announced the sale of a 49% stake in its massive real estate operations, Crescent Resources, to Morgan Stanley Real Estate for $1.4 billion after tax.

The healthy year-over-year natural gas storage surplus could be slimmed down rapidly this winter — putting upward pressure on natural gas prices — if the 2007 Farmers’ Almanac weather forecast holds up. “Shivery is not dead,” editor Peter Geiger said, alluding to the winter weather forecast in the latest edition of the 188-year-old publication.

The healthy year-over-year natural gas storage surplus could be slimmed down rapidly this winter — putting upward pressure on natural gas prices — if the 2007 Farmers’ Almanac weather forecast holds up. “Shivery is not dead,” editor Peter Geiger said, alluding to the winter weather forecast in the latest edition of the 188-year-old publication.