weather

Transco said unfavorable weather had delayed the progress of repairs to a section of pipe in Eugene Island Block 135 on its Southeast Louisiana Lateral that was damaged during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Transco now anticipates completion of the work on Feb. 15; it had previously expected to finish Jan. 31 (see Daily GPI, Jan. 16).

Dominion said it has determined, based upon current and forecasted weather, that hourly quantities delivered to customers at seven delivery areas in New York (Corning Natural Gas, New York State Electric & Gas, Rochester Gas & Electric, Niagara Mohawk, Niagara Mohawk East Gate, Fillmore Gas and National Fuel Gas Distribution) may exceed what it can deliver without jeopardizing its ability to provide firm services to other customers. Each affected customer “will take whatever action it may deem appropriate, including notification of IT shippers” at affected delivery points, Dominion said. The pipeline said Tuesday it was providing four hours of advance notice that it may issue an OFO that would require customers to limit delivery fluctuations to the areas within one hour. See the bulletin board for other information on the potential OFO.

With record natural gas storage inventories and a lack of winter weather (until last week), some may think it’s not the time to talk about expanding North American storage facilities. But those in the know would beg to differ.

With record natural gas storage inventories and a lack of winter weather (until this week), some may not think it’s the time to talk about expanding North American storage facilities. But those in the know would beg to differ.

Although continuing moderate weather almost everywhere outside the mountain areas of the West and bearish expectations of another subpar storage pull made it seem unlikely, the cash market achieved gains Wednesday at all but two points. One source could only speculate that there must have been some storage-futures spread purchases in play because he saw little serious heating load for Thursday except in parts of the West, Upper Plains and northern New England.

Citing high linepack and warm weather forecasts, MRT issued a System Protection Warning that took effect Saturday until further notice. While it is in place, MRT will not schedule any volumes that result in a daily long position and will not accept any makeup of short imbalance positions.

Florida Gas Transmission allowed an Overage Alert Day for market-area customers to expire Tuesday, but cautioned them that with freezing weather being forecasted in northern Florida again by Thursday evening, it may need to reimplement an Overage Alert Day for an upcoming gas day.

Citing “very cold weather projections in the Pacific Northwest over the next few days and record low throughput volumes across the Canadian border,” Northwest declared a Stage II (8%) Overrun Entitlement for Receiving Parties on the Wenatchee Lateral and a Stage III Overrun Entitlement (13%) for all other Receiving Parties located north of the Kemmerer (WY) Compressor Station for the gas days of Wednesday and Thursday. Northwest said its tariff provides that an Overrun Entitlement will subject a receiving party to penalties if the party’s takes of gas exceed its confirmed nominations by more than the allowed threshold percentage. Northwest said it “encourages customers to secure adequate supplies from Canadian supply sources during this cold period.”

Citing forecasts of warm weather in its service area, MRT implemented a System Protection Warning Wednesday. See the bulletin board for SPW conditions.