Tuesday

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge signed House Bill 1331 Tuesday,deregulating many aspects of the state gas industry and paving theway for statewide customer choice to begin Nov. 1.

Multiple fires were reported last Tuesday afternoon in BattleCreek, MI, as an “incident” at Semco’s Battle Creek gas systemresulted in two destroyed homes and extensive residential damage.Two people were treated at the scene for smoke inhalation, Semcosaid. One report said the incident occurred when a high-pressureline was mistakenly connected to a low-pressure residential line.

Questar is cutting about 25,000 Dth/d while repairing mechanicalproblems that began Tuesday afternoon on its No. 3 compressor atFidlar Station.

After a lower open at the bell yesterday, the futures marketmoved higher and easily recouped Tuesday’s losses. The Julycontract finished up 6.7 cents and in doing so registered anoutside up-day on the daily charts.

Sea Robin told shippers Tuesday it must shut in the entiresystem for 10-12 hours today and asked them to cut their nominationlevels by 50%. The action resulted from being informed by Texaco,operator of the Sea Robin Processing Plant, that the plant musthalt operation to repair a leak. The event constitutes a forcemajeure, Sea Robin said, and thus it declared an OFO Type 30 forthe shutdown period. The pipeline said it had contacted downstreamdelivery point operators and they could not accept gas untreated bythe plant’s dehydration facility.

El Paso returned its Blanco “D” turbine (see Daily GPI, June 1) to service Tuesdaymorning, removing a 270 MMcf/d constraint on San Juan Basincapacity. A problem with turbine vibration at Lincoln Station appearsto be under control, El Paso said, and it restored San Juan Crossovercapacity to 580 MMcf/d.

The cash market was stronger by varying degrees Tuesday withprice movement ranging from flat to about a dime higher. Butsources didn’t expect the firmness to last, since many points wereheading back down along with the screen in late business. Theiroutlook was reinforced when the June futures contract continued todrop in afternoon Access activity.

Southern Union gained permission Tuesday to join an existinglawsuit against Southwest Gas in a last-ditch attempt to overtakeOneok as the winner in the race to merge with Southwest. Thelawsuit accuses Southwest Gas’ board of directors of refusing tonegotiate with Southern Union in good faith. None of the partiesinvolved would comment further on the situation as of press time.

CMS Corp.’s marketing division, CMS Marketing, Services and Trading (MST), completed an agreement last Tuesday to purchase a total of 9.3 Bcf of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the North West Shelf LNG project in Australia for delivery to the CMS Trunkline LNG facility in Lake Charles, LA. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.