Coastal Gas Gathering and Processing experienced a fire Thursdayat its Dragon Trail (CO) Plant that caused one injury and limitedreceipts into Northwest, Questar, CIG and Public Service Co. ofColorado. Dragon Trail throughput was reduced temporarily to zeroFriday but was being restored by that afternoon, a spokesman said.Full output was expected to be reached by Friday night or Saturday,he said.

Sonat said Friday afternoon that an OFO Type 6 was unlikely tobe implemented Saturday but “too close to call” for long imbalancesSunday and today. Compressor maintenance that began Wednesday atSonat’s Bear Creek (LA) Storage Field has been completed and theassociated force majeure was canceled.

According to CIG’s tariff, firm storage customers must lowertheir inventories to no more than 12% of Maximum Available Capacity(MAC) by April 30 each year. However, having reviewed recentstorage field operations and performance and in order to provideshippers with more supply flexibility, CIG has determined that theymay retain up to 20% percent of MAC as of April 30, 2000. Thus thepipeline has waived the inventory requirements for this year.

Pine Needle LNG Co. is holding an open season through March 24for 347,770 dekatherms of LNG storage capacity (including 34,777Dth/d of associated vaporization capacity and 1,739 Dth/d ofassociated liquefication capacity) beginning April 1. The PineNeedle facility is located in Guilford County, NC, near Transco’sStation 160. Call Russell Rush at (713) 215-2420 for moreinformation.

Transco has posted its 2000 schedule for a variety ofconstruction projects running from Texas through New Jersey. Theyare not expected to impact FT shippers. However, based on pastsummer operating conditions, it is anticipated that interruptibleservices (IT and secondary FT) may be affected by some of the work.See the Transit bulletin board for details.

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