Daily GPI

The impact of the 1.325 Bcf/d Alliance Pipeline and the 1 Bcf/dVector Pipeline on Chicago basis prices will be a lot lesssignificant than some may be expecting, according to several marketobservers speaking at the LDC Forum in Chicago yesterday.

Americas Power Partners (APP) has teamed up with steam productand service provider Armstrong Service Inc. (ASI) to own, operate,maintain and improve the utility plant and systems for the H.J.Heinz food processing facility located in Muscatine, IA. Thecompanies signed the multimillion dollar agreement yesterday.

After months of speculation in the industry, Alliance Pipelineconfirmed yesterday full commercial service will be delayed nearlya month until Oct. 30. When construction of the system wasscheduled nearly three years ago, Oct. 2 was the target date forcommercial service.

The deadly explosion that occurred on El Paso Natural Gas’pipeline Aug. 19 in Carlsbad, NM, killing 12 people who werecamping nearby provided enough incentive for the Senate to swiftlypass pipeline safety legislation last week. However, critics saythe legislation fails miserably by doing nothing to improve theterrible track record of the government agency in charge ofoverseeing pipeline safety.

Columbia Gas of Ohio said it had no other choice but toterminate Energy Max of Northeast Ohio from participation in itsCustomer Choice program after the gas supplier failed to delivergas to Columbia for transportation to Energy Max’s 8,000 OhioChoice customers for the majority of August. As supplier of lastresort, Columbia picked up the slack using its own natural gassupply.

Distrigas of Massachusetts (DOMAC) has filed with the FederalEnergy Regulatory Commission to construct four new high-poweredvaporizers to deliver 280 MMBtu/d of regassified LNG to a new1,550 MW Mystic Station power plant to be built by Sithe Industriesin Everett, MA. (CP00-447).

An Abilene, TX natural gas liquids pipeline owned by ExxonMobilCorp. remained shut down Friday night after an explosion killed apolice detective who was first on the scene of the accident, sent awoman to the hospital and forced the evacuation of nearbyresidents.

California regulators Thursday conditionally approved a $3.5million settlement penalizing Southern California Gas for itshandling of the proposed sale and use of eminent domain powersrelated to one of its small, discontinued Los Angeles-areaunderground storage fields in the LA suburb of Montebello, CA. Thelarge utility company admitted no wrongdoing and is avoiding what,by its own admission, could be the substantially larger costs ofprotracted litigation.

An Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) with the California PublicUtilities Commission (CPUC) has recommended the Commission approvean emergency motion by Southern California Edison to freeze theformula for avoided cost payments to qualifying facilities at theAugust rate of $4.5133/MMBtu, rather than post the September rateof $6.4567.