Turbine

Northern Natural Gas took its Plains Turbine down Monday forabout three weeks of unplanned repairs. The outage affects 100,000MMbtu/d at nine points on the Hobbs System in southeastern NewMexico.

North Mainline capacity on El Paso is down by 300 MMcf/d throughOct. 29 due to an overhaul of the Williams (AZ) “C” turbine thatwas set to begin Sunday (Oct. 10).

El Paso will take the Gallup (NM) Station’s B turbine down forsix hours today to calibrate fuel controls. Capacity out of SanJuan Basin will be reduced by 80 MMcf/d for today’s gas day only.

El Paso found unexpected damage in its inspection of the WhiteRock No. 2 turbine. The unit remained down through Friday, cuttingSan Juan Basin capacity by 200 MMcf/d. The pipeline expected tocomplete repairs by late Friday afternoon, but said because itcould not raise San Juan capacity until the unit could be tested,the constraint would remain in effect for Cycles 1 and 2 ofSaturday’s gas day.

Algonquin has completed turbine replacement at the Burrillville(RI) Compressor Station. However, April 30-May 5 work on the30-inch mainline will limit Burrillville throughput to 400,000Dth/d, the pipeline said.

April 26-30 turbine modification at Transwestern’s BloomfieldStation on the San Juan Lateral will cut 25,000 MMBtu/d of Ignacio(CO) to Blanco (NM) capacity.

El Paso said Friday its Waha (TX) GE turbine is off-line againdue to a failed coupling on the field gas compressor. If expeditedtemporary repairs over the weekend prove successful, the pipelinesaid, the unit is expected to return to service around Wednesday.Otherwise, a new coupling will be available around April 6; anothershutdown would be required for its installation. The IMLWAHA pointis limited to 65 MMcf/d during the outage.

Advanced turbine systems (ATS), including microturbines, andfuel cells, took the top dollars in the Department of Energyresearch, development and demonstration budget for FY99, accordingto a budget assessment by the American Gas Association. Overall,AGA estimated DOE’s research funding for natural gas set a newrecord at $246 million. That’s up from the $209 million in thisyear’s budget.