Transcanada

On the heels of the announcement that it had acquired a majority of TransCanada’s natural gas marketing business (see related story this issue), Atlanta-based Mirant Corp. reported that it has entered the production business by purchasing interest in 18 natural gas and oil producing fields as well as 206,000 acres of mineral rights in South Louisiana from Castex Energy Inc. for approximately $162 million.

TransCanada advised shippers Friday that due to forecasts ofwarmer than normal weather in the Eastern Delivery Area, diversionsand IT to the South West Delivery Area might be curtailed over theweekend and possibly into this week, depending on marketconditions. Diversions from Niagara and Chippewa would be excluded,the pipeline said.

An outage of the TransCanada Midstream Caribou Gas Plant thatwas scheduled Aug. 3-5 has been canceled, according to a WEI FieldServices posting on the Westcoast bulletin board.

TransCanada yesterday was continuing to evaluate an electronicfailure on its 36-inch Western Alberta System. A tool used duringan in-line inspection run failed. Arrival of a de-watering pig atthe Knight compressor station has been delayed until about noonmountain time today. Work on the system between the Miekle Riverand Knight compressor station in northwestern Alberta began May 31,impacting receipt capacity by about 1 Bcf/d. The system should beup to regular flows again some time by Saturday, a spokesman said.The outage had been scheduled to end June 9.

The upstream Canadian portion of the Portland Natural GasTransmission Project – the PNGTS Extension, which will link theU.S. pipeline with TransCanada PipeLines via an extension of theTrans Qu‚bec & Maritimes — received a favorable environmentalreview from Canada’s National Energy Board. The NEB concluded the132-mile extension is “not likely to cause significant adverseenvironmental effects, provided that the mitigative measuresidentified during the public hearing are implemented and enforced.”The NEB submitted its Comprehensive Study Report on the project tothe federal Minister of Environment and to the CanadianEnvironmental Assessment Agency last week