Unit

Houston-based Kinder Morgan Inc. has agreed to sell three naturalgas gathering systems for nearly $21 million to WBI Holdings Inc., thenatural gas pipeline unit of MDU Resources Group Inc. The gatheringsystems in Montana, Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska include operationsthat were discontinued for divestiture last September as part ofKinder’s “back to basics” restructuring program (see NGI, Sept. 20, 1999).

NGPL will perform annual maintenance Tuesday through Friday on aunit at Compressor Station 167 (Lea County, NM), reducing areacapacity by about 21,000 MMBtu/d. Depending on nomination levels,only a limited amount of ITS/AOR service may be scheduled for gasreceived in the Permian Zone’s Segments 7, 8 or 9 and deliveredoutside the Permian Zone. The pipeline has scheduled a constructionshutdown of its Old Ocean Lateral for April 27-29. Eight points inBrazoria County, TX, and one in Matagorda County, TX, must takenominations to zero during the outage.

Moving ahead with plans to establish a strong presence in theCarolinas, Williams’ gas pipeline unit said yesterday it has filedan application with FERC to construct and operate the previouslyannounced Sundance expansion project.

Due to unscheduled maintenance at its Elmore (AL) CompressorStation, Sonat expects a 5,000-horsepower unit to remainunavailable until April 9. Although no reductions were anticipatedas of Sunday, it may be necessary to cut FT on a pro rata basis,the pipeline said.

Reliant reported its #1 unit at the Amber Compressor Station(Grady County, OK) has gone down with mechanical problems and itcan not estimate the outage’s duration. Until further notice Westof Amber capacity is limited to 360,000 Dth/d.

Equitable Resources combined its Gulf of Mexico exploration andproduction unit with Westport Oil and Gas Co., a privateDenver-based exploration company. Equitable will receive about $50million in cash and a large minority interest in Westport.Equitable also will name three representatives and nominate afourth to the Westport board, bringing Westport’s board membershipto nine.

Sempra Energy’s San Diego Gas and Electric utility unit hasannounced a two-phase auction to sell its remaining 11 purchasepower contracts, which cost the utility nearly $500 million lastyear. The contracts include nine above-market qualifying facility(QF) deals totaling 207 MW; the other two contracts cover another175 MW.

A Williams pipeline unit said last week that it has receivednonbinding interest for about 190 MMcf/d on its proposedinternational gas pipeline link from the Pacific Northwest tocogeneration plants on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. Thestrong results prompted Williams and its partner, BC Hydro, to goback to the drawing board on the proposed size, route and generalscope of the project, which was originally estimated at about $120million and 100 MMcf/d.

A Williams pipeline unit said last week that it has receivednon-binding interest for about 190 MMcf/d on its proposedinternational gas pipeline link from the Pacific Northwest tocogeneration plants on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. Thestrong results prompted Williams and its partner, BC Hydro, to goback to the drawing board on the proposed size, route and generalscope of the project, which was originally estimated at about $120million and 100 MMcf/d.