Viking

Based on forecasts of warmer weather in Wisconsin and its projection of nominated receipts at the Marshfield, WI interconnect with Viking, ANR withdrew Thursday the Marshfield OFO that had been in effect since Tuesday (see Daily GPI, Dec. 21).

Saying it is experiencing a shortage of receipts at itsMarshfield, WI, interconnect with Viking that may threaten itssystem integrity, ANR issued an OFO for the point that takes effecttoday. All firm shippers nominating MDQ (Maximum Daily Quantity)with Marshfield as a receipt point must keep their nominations atthose levels until further notice, and all firm shippers nominatingless than MDQ at Marshfield must raise their volumes to MDQ levels.Any firm shipper nominating Marshfield as a delivery point may notincrease volumes until further notice.

Like a grizzly bear accidentally stepping on a porcupine, VikingVoyageur seems to have tread on a Wisconsin landowner whose husbandhappens to be a Noble Prize winning economist with a dislike ofpipeline infrastructure. In testimony filed at FERC on behalf ofhis wife Katherine D. Miller, Merton H. Miller, McCormickDistinguished Service Professor of Finance, Emeritus, of theGraduate School of Business, University of Chicago, warned theCommission if its goal in approving new pipelines is to benefitconsumers then it should toss the Voyageur project.