Cheyenne Plains said late Tuesday it was continuing its free flow operation “as well as removing delivery point constraints as downstream delivery point operators agree to accept off-spec gas from Cheyenne Plains.” Effective with Cycle 2 nominations for Wednesday’s gas day, receipts from WIC at the Curly and Thunder Chief interconnects and from CIG at the Red Cloud interconnect were again possible at their normal capacity, Cheyenne Plains said, explaining that the leaking valve on its system that had previously prevented receipts from WIC and CIG had been returned to service. See the bulletin board for a list of delivery point operators that have agreed to waive their carbon dioxide (CO2) gas quality requirements and to accept gas that contains up to 3% CO2, along with allowable point-specific volumes. In another posting, Cheyenne Plains said that while an investigation of Sunday’s Cheyenne Plains Compressor Station fire (see Daily GPI, Sept. 18) is still under way, “we believe the fire resulted from the release and subsequent ignition of gas when the flange connections associated with a relief valve on the suction side of the Cheyenne Plains compression failed. When the fire was detected, all compression in the Cheyenne yard was shut down, including that serving Colorado Interstate Gas Company (CIG) and Wyoming Interstate Company, Ltd. (WIC). Subsequently, the compression facilities serving CIG and WIC were able to return to service. Although damage assessments of the Cheyenne Plains facilities are continuing, it is clear that a significant amount of instrumentation and electrical wiring was damaged in the fire and will need to be replaced. This includes most of the cable trays and associated electrical wiring. Some nearby yard piping and valves appear to need replacement as well.”

Northern Natural Gas said it is calling a “blackout period for in-kind payback” in its market area for September long imbalances that would begin scheduling physical payback to the customer from Northern during November. “When a blackout period is called, production month imbalance eligibility for in-kind (physical) payback is reduced to the greater of 1% of the shipper’s monthly scheduled volumes (versus the normal 3% limitation) or 1,000 MMBtu,” the pipeline said. It explained that Northern’s storage facilities will reach their peak inventory levels during the October/November time frame, and “unanticipated excess long gas during the month of September would increase risks related to the management of the storage fields throughout the fall peak inventory period. The price differential between September cash and November prompt[-month futures] has recently ranged from [25 cents] to $1.00.”

Dominion said it will have no capacity available Saturday through Monday for due-pipe imbalance make-ups or creation of due-shipper imbalances. Also, no incremental loan payback or parks will be accepted, the pipeline said.

Due to maintenance that started Wednesday on the 20-inch diameter Main Pass Franklinton line and is expected to last about a month, Southern Natural Gas will be unable to accept nominations at the Cox Bay point during this time. The pipeline declared the work to be a force majeure event.

Northwest informed shippers of a Declared Deficiency Period in conjunction with a unit inspection at the Kemmerer Compressor Station that began Tuesday and will run through Sunday. Primary firm nomination requests through Kemmerer have exceeded the available capacity of 619,000 Dth/d, Northwest said. Based on the station’s design capacity of 655,000 Dth/d, the Daily Deficiency Volume is 36,000 Dth/d, it added.

CenterPoint is limiting delivery capacity at Columbia Gulf/Perryville (South Pooling Area) to 190,705 Dth/d due to a shutdown for unscheduled maintenance at Delhi Station in Richland Parish, LA. The work began Wednesday and will last about a week. CenterPoint said it anticipates that no capacity will be available for IT service during this time and firm delivery nominations will be reduced and scheduled in accordance with the pipeline tariff.

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