Transcanada

After nine months of negotiations with shippers, Calgary-based TransCanada Corp. on Monday announced an agreement to maintain the services and finances status quo on its Nova natural gas pipeline grid in Alberta and British Columbia (BC).

TransCanada Corp. moved Thursday to calm a hornets’ nest of protest among its natural gas customers in Ontario, Quebec and the northeastern United States by making a formal promise to maintain service continuity.

Summer field work is under way for the effort by producers ExxonMobil Corp., BP plc and ConocoPhillips, and pipeliner TransCanada Corp. to build a liquefied natural gas liquefaction and export facility in southern Alaska.

Opponents of TransCanada Corp.’s proposed northern portion of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada running through parts of Nebraska argued last Thursday in state district court in Lancaster County that Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman lacked the authority to approve a proposed route for the project. In January, he approved a new alternative route (see Shale Daily, Jan. 23). Opponents of the project want Heineman’s decision voided by a district court judge because they allege a state pipeline siting act passed last year by Nebraska’s legislature is unconstitutional. The legislation gave the governor the ultimate decision on the route. At the end of last year Lancaster County District Judge Stephanie Stacy rejected the state’s attempt to have the lawsuit dismissed.

TransCanada Alaska Co. LLC (TC Alaska) has suspended development of the North Slope-to-Alberta leg (Alberta option) of its planned Alaska Pipeline Project while it assesses other alternatives to commercialize Alaska North Slope gas, including the potential export of liquefied North Slope gas, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) said in a report to Congress. Following an unsuccessful open season, “TC Alaska notified the Commission on May 11 it was curtailing interim work on the Alberta option while requesting to maintain the record in Docket No. PF09-11 for potential future use. Keeping the prefiling docket open will enable the draft resource reports and other information…to remain viable until TC Alaska moves forward on either the Alberta option or another alternative,” FERC said. TC Alaska “also indicated it was working with Alaska North Slope producers to explore the feasibility of developing a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export project that would include constructing a pipeline from the North Slope to an LNG export terminal at an undetermined location in Southcentral Alaska (LNG option). TC Alaska estimated that it would file an application with the Commission for that project in October 2014,” the agency told Congress. “The Commission will not move forward to the next step in its NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] process until TC Alaska decides whether it will proceed with a pipeline to serve North American markets (Alberta option) or embarks on a project to liquefy and export natural gas to foreign markets (LNG option).”

TransCanada Alaska Co. LLC (TC Alaska) has suspended development of the North Slope-to-Alberta leg (Alberta option) of its planned Alaska Pipeline Project while it assesses other alternatives to commercialize Alaska North Slope gas, including the potential export of liquefied North Slope gas, FERC said in its 14th report to Congress on the Alaska pipeline project.

August natural gas bidweek prices saw stout gains across the board except for a handful of Marcellus Shale trading points as NGI’s National Spot Gas Average came in 28 cents higher than the previous month at $3.00/MMBtu, according to Natural Gas Intelligence (NGI), which has unveiled a number of new market pricing locations with its latest monthly price survey.

In the article “TransCanada: Marcellus-Backed Flow Reversal Is Inevitable” (see NGI, Feb. 27), NGI incorrectly stated that Union Gas is working on plans for a new import route from New York State to its Dawn storage and trading hub in southern Ontario. Union Gas in fact has no plans for a competitive pipeline with an import route from New York State to Dawn. The company says it has discussed the need for an expansion of pipeline capacity east of Parkway to Maple to relieve a transportation bottleneck on this corridor, and it continues to believe an expansion of this path is required. NGI regrets the error.

In the article “TransCanada: Marcellus-Backed Flow Reversal Is Inevitable” (see Daily GPI, Feb. 27), NGI incorrectly stated that Union Gas is working on plans for a new import route from New York State to its Dawn storage and trading hub in southern Ontario. Union Gas in fact has no plans for a competitive pipeline with an import route from New York State to Dawn. The company says it has discussed the need for an expansion of pipeline capacity east of Parkway to Maple to relieve a transportation bottleneck on this corridor, and it continues to believe an expansion of this path is required. NGI regrets the error.