weather

Citing cold weather in Florida and low linepack, Florida Gas Transmission issued an Overage Alert Day notice Thursday for customers in its market area with 20% tolerance for negative daily imbalances.

Saying cold weather was forecasted to move into central Florida over the weekend, Florida Gas Transmission cautioned customers in its market area Friday to be aware of the potential for issuance of an Overage Alert Day on an upcoming gas day.

The political backlash from high winter heating bills may not be nearly as severe as first expected because mild weather has pulled the rug out from under wholesale prices. Consumers Energy said Wednesday that its customers can expect about half of the increase in prices that the utility previously projected.

With cold weather forecasted in Florida for Wednesday night and Thursday morning, Florida Gas Transmission told market-area customers of the potential for issuance of an Overage Alert Day notice on upcoming gas days.

Temporary business interruptions, project delays and damage from weather-related events failed to deter U.S. energy master limited partnerships from having a strong year, according to a report issued Thursday by Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services (S&P).

Saying its linepack was low and cold weather was in the Florida forecast for Thursday night and Friday morning, Florida Gas Transmission issued an Overage Alert Day notice for market-area customers Thursday with 20% tolerance for negative daily imbalances.

Northwest lifted Wednesday its Stage III entitlement (see Daily GPI, Dec. 13) due to moderate weather forecasts for most of its Pacific Northwest market area. Northwest also has restored about 170,000 Dth/d of delivery point capacity to CIG at their Green River, WY interconnect and was accepting nomination requests for the Timely cycle on Tuesday. The interconnect was shut down earlier this month following a nearby rupture on a Northwest lateral (see Daily GPI, Dec. 9). The associated declared deficiency period has ended, Northwest said, adding that it will provide updates on its plans to restore the interconnect’s full design capacity of 271,400 Dth/d as information becomes available.

Citing cold weather forecasts, MRT said a System Protection Warning would go into effect at the start of Sunday’s gas day. The following conditions will apply during the SPW: MRT will not schedule any mainline IT or AOR volumes for delivery north of Glendale, AR; firm volumes will be limited to their primary direction of flow; MRT is not accepting short imbalance positions in the market zone; and shippers may not nominate supply from existing long imbalance positions in the market zone. The pipeline said it currently has capacity available on the East Line, so in order to avoid OFOs, shippers who were relying on mainline IT, AOR and/or imbalance volumes were encouraged to resource supply to the East Line or reduce applicable delivery volumes.

Despite summer-like weather throughout most of California this week, the state regulatory commission Friday took action to allow the state’s major natural gas utilities to help lessen the sting of upcoming winter gas utility bills, authorizing Southern California Gas Co. to use 4 Bcf of below-market-priced cushion gas to serve low-income customers this winter, and allowing Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to provide rate discounts for customers slashing their monthly energy use by 10% or more.