Northern Natural Gas, operator of the Matagorda Offshore Pipeline System (MOPS), declared force majeure on MOPS Friday afternoon after discovering a leak near the Matagorda Island 686 C platform. All receipt and delivery points were shut in until further notice, Northern said. It was preparing for a restart of MOPS operations this week following a June 12 shutdown of the system (see Daily GPI, July 27).

Southern Natural Gas canceled Saturday a Type 6 OFO for short imbalances that had been implemented on the previous Saturday. Effective with the Intraday 2 nominations cycle for Friday’s gas day it planned to schedule 250,000 Dth/d at 13 receipt points that had been approved for resumed flows (see Daily GPI, Aug. 10) after being shut in following a rupture at the Gate 6 supply aggregation platform offshore southeast Louisiana. The points had been flowing about 350,000 Dth/d prior to the force majeure event, Southern said. It will continue to allow these volumes to ramp up to pre-rupture levels as operating conditions allow. Southern also said Friday it has identified an interim solution that will allow about 300,000 Dth/d of Main Pass area volumes to flow into the 26-inch diameter line moving gas from Gate 6. This 300,000 Dth/d is incremental to the volumes outlined earlier, the pipeline added. Initial estimates indicated that the pipe installation allowing the Main Pass increases would be completed Sunday (Aug. 12), but prior to allowing this gas to flow, Southern had scheduled an additional anomaly inspection on the 26-inch line starting that Sunday. See the bulletin board for a lengthy list of the Main Pass area points that will be allowed to flow by this work. The Eloi Bay-TSEGG, Bayou Gentilly and Delacroix points will not be able to resume flowing into Southern’s system until additional repairs are made at the Gate 6 platform. The return to service date for this work is unknown at this time, Southern said.

Northwest confirmed that a leak had occurred between the Pocatello and Burley compressor stations (see Daily GPI, Aug. 10), and although it notified shippers of a Declared Deficiency Period associated with the leak Thursday afternoon, it was able to complete repairs early Friday morning and avoid any nomination cuts for Friday’s gas day.

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