System

People living near Barnett Shale gas production facilities could be at risk for immune system damage from toxic air emissions, and the risk is likely understated by an air quality study completed for the city of Fort Worth earlier this year, a state lawmaker warned Mayor Betsy Price in a letter.

Ruby Pipeline said Thursday night that based on its best available information, the return to service on its system is anticipated to occur during the gas day of Sunday (Dec. 18). The restoration plan includes ramping up operationally available capacity over the course of about three days to allow Ruby to restore the linepack necessary to schedule and deliver service at firm contracted capacity, the pipeline said. The plan had three phases: 1) Ruby would accept nominations for Sunday during the Intraday 2 nomination cycle (Cycle 4) with an estimated operationally available capacity of 330 MMcf/d; 2) Ruby would accept nominations for Monday, starting with the Evening nomination cycle (Cycle 2) with an estimated operationally available capacity of 660 MMcf/d; and 3) for Tuesday’s gas day, Ruby anticipates being able to schedule firm contracted capacity, but it depends on acceptable linepack restoration.

Crestwood Midstream Partners LP has signed a memorandum of understanding with Mountaineer Keystone LLC to build a 42-mile natural gas gathering system in northeast West Virginia, a project that would for the first time open the Marcellus Shale to the Houston-based midstream partnership.

Pacific Gas and Electric is ending a systemwide low-inventory OFO Wednesday after it had been in effect on the utility’s California Gas Transmission system Monday and Tuesday.

In a 9 p.m. PST update Wednesday, affiliates Southern California Gas and San Diego Gas & Electric said projected receipts into their Southern System for Thursday’s gas day were expected to be sufficient to meet minimum requirements and therefore a Curtailment Watch was canceled.

Southern California Gas declared a high-linepack OFO for Saturday, setting a 10% tolerance for positive daily imbalances on deliveries into its system.

Pacific Gas and Electric, which has had simultaneous Stage 1 low-inventory/high-inventory OFOs in effect consistently on its California Gas Transmission system since it began them July 8 due to lower pressures from pipe remediation work (see Daily GPI, July 8), said it will have an OFO-free gas day Thursday.

NGPL advised shippers of a potential OFO “for oversupply or undertake activities across its entire system due to the lack of significant market load.” Shippers can mitigate the need for an OFO by ensuring that imbalances are not in a long position and that point operators are flowing as nominated the pipeline added. It said that if it is determined that the OFO is required, “any gas left on the pipeline is at risk of OFO penalties.” See the bulletin board for details.

A compressed natural gas-fueled Freightliner M2 112 delivered to Ryder System Inc. Tuesday was the 1,000th natural gas truck delivered by Daimler Trucks North America (DTNA), which claims to be the first commercial vehicle manufacturer to reach that milestone. The truck was manufactured at DTNA’s plant in Mt. Holly, NC. Portland, OR-based DTNA reported combined sales of 3,600 natural gas vehicles to date. As part of a $16 million allocation to promote clean transportation fuels, the California Energy Commission earlier this year approved a $1.28 million grant to DTNA for 40 heavy-duty natural gas-fueled vehicles in a buy-down program (see Daily GPI, May 27).