Southwest Gas declared a hold to burn notice, effective Tuesday until further notice, due to low linepack on its system and drafting on Kern River, according to a Kern River bulletin board posting. Southwest asked for customer cooperation “to limit actual takes to not exceed scheduled supplies, which will assist in avoiding drafting until such time as the supply shortages can be corrected. Also, negative daily nominations for imbalance paybacks from Southwest to customers have been eliminated…until further notice.”

Gulf South said it began unscheduled maintenance Tuesday that required a shutdown of its Index 228 segment in northwest Louisiana until further notice. To the extent that Primary Firm service is interrupted, Gulf South will claim force majeure for as long as service cannot be performed due to the maintenance. The work required the shut-in of five meters.

Transwestern reported experiencing a mechanical failure Tuesday night of Unit #2 at Maljamar Compressor Station in West Texas. Effective Wednesday until further notice station capacity has been reduced from about 60,000 MMBtu/d to 32,000 MMBtu/d, affecting the Frontier Maljamar receipt point, Transwestern said.

NGPL plans a Dec. 16-18 installation of a hot tap at Compressor Station 156 in Kiowa County, OK, during which four locations will not be available for service.

Florida Gas Transmission (FGT) said ongoing maintenance on one of three units at Station 7, previously expected to be completed Dec. 15, is now projected for completion by Dec. 31. FGT is scheduling up to about 375,000 MMBtu/d through the station; during normal operations it schedules up to 465,000 MMBtu/d there. FGT also said it will perform one day of maintenance at Station 6 on Dec. 30. It will schedule up to about 150,000 MMBtu/d, half of normal station capacity, through Station 6 that day.

Continuing inclement weather prompted Tennessee to further delay the start date for a valve replacement project in the West Cameron 68 Field (see Daily GPI, Dec. 10) until Friday.

Rockies Express (REX) is accepting bids through 11 a.m. CST Dec. 19 for firm transportation capacity of 70,000 Dth/d from Zone 1 to Zone 2. This seasonal capacity is available Jan. 1-March 31, REX said, subject to its receiving any necessary regulatory approvals prior to Jan. 1, including authority from the Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to operate the Julesburg-to-Bertrand segment at hoop stresses up to 80% of the pipe’s specified minimum yield strength. See the bulletin board for further details.

El Paso is holding a binding open season through 2 p.m. MST Dec. 17 for up to 55,000 Dth/d of firm capacity from receipt points in the San Juan and Permian basins to delivery points in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona and at the California border for service starting as early as Jan. 1 or no later than April 1. See the bulletin board for more information. Citing shipper interest, El Paso also said it is extending an open season for a proposed expansion of the Washington Ranch Gas Storage facility in Eddy County, NM. The open season, which began Nov. 6 and was originally planned to end Friday, will now end Jan. 23, El Paso said. The proposed expansion would increase design deliverability and injection capacities by 150 MMcf/d and 70 MMcf/d, respectively.

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