East Tennessee Natural Gas issued a Balancing Alert OFO, effective with the start of Thursday’s gas day, late Wednesday afternoon after having warned that one might become necessary. In a bulletin board posting earlier Wednesday, the pipeline said it had been absorbing large due-shipper imbalances for several days, and “forecasted demand and scheduled deliveries indicate that parties will continue to leave excess supply on the system.” Saying it lacks the operational flexibility to continue to manage these imbalances, East Tennessee told shippers they must “take immediate action to balance receipts with expected deliveries and reduce their due-shipper imbalance positions.” The pipeline said that if it fails to see such immediate action, it will force balance parties not taking their scheduled volumes or issue a Balancing Alert OFO to those exceeding a 5% daily imbalance tolerance. In response to the announcement, Transco said current operational conditions will not allow it to accept nominations until further notice at Transco’s Cascade Creek interconnect with East Tennessee.

TransCanada wishes to sell 945,000 gigajoules of gas it has in storage at the Alberta Energy Co. (AECO) facility in Alberta. It is taking binding fixed-price bids through 10:30 a.m. MST Dec. 14. The gas would be taken at the Empress receipt point in daily quantities ranging from zero to a maximum of 20,000 gigajoules over the period from Jan. 1, 2005 through March 31, 2005. For details, see the bulletin board or call Kay Coad at (403) 920-5569.

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