After lifting Thursday a System Protection Warning (SPW) that had begun Monday (see Daily GPI, Dec. 14), MRT cited new forecasts of cold weather in saying it will implement another SPW Saturday. It is subject to these conditions: 1) MRT will not schedule any mainline IT or AOR (authorized overrun) volumes for delivery north of Glendale; 2) Firm volumes will be limited to their primary direction of flow; 3) MRT is not accepting short imbalance positions in the market zone; and 4) Shippers may not nominate supply from existing long imbalance positions in the market zone. Saying it has capacity available on the East Line, MRT encouraged shippers who were relying on mainline IT, AOR and/or imbalance volumes to re-source supply to the East Line or reduce applicable delivery volumes in order to avoid OFOs.

Sonat canceled Thursday an OFO Type 6 affecting short imbalances that had gone into effect Tuesday. Sonat considered it unlikely that a new OFO would be necessary Friday or Saturday, but said it was “highly likely” that one would be issued, again for short imbalances, Sunday and Monday. “Extremely cold weather is again expected to arrive in the market area around Sunday,” the pipeline said, adding that capacity allocations are possible for all market delivery groups in Zones 2 and 3 and on its South Georgia system as early as Sunday. See the bulletin board for details.

Northern Natural Gas declared a force majeure at the Farmington, MN, compressor station due to a mechanical problem. The unplanned outage’s potential impact will vary depending upon weather and load conditions, the pipeline said. On peak load days, some level of allocation may be required north of Farmington, but no effect on primary firm deliveries is expected. Preliminary indications are that the force majeure could extend up to two months, NNG said.

Florida Gas Transmission further tightened the tolerance for negative daily imbalances from 20% to 15% when it extended an Overage Alert Day notice into its third day Thursday.

Effective Friday, Columbia Gulf is reducing to zero the nonfirm capacity that it can deliver to Florida Gas Transmission at MLI (Master List Interconnect) #4118 in Lafayette Parish, LA, until further notice.

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