Kern River reported being informed of a force majeure situation on the Jonah Gas Gathering System behind the Opal (WY) Plant. The Jonah posting was quoted as saying the force majeure event began late Friday and continued through Monday due to a failure of the after cooler heat exchanger at the Luman #1 compressor. “Due to length of downtime, Jonah’s deliveries to Opal were below scheduled nominations” on the above dates, including Cycle III cuts for Monday’s gas day, according to the Jonah notice. Despite the Jonah producers expecting the force majeure to be extended through Thursday because of a delay in receiving the replacement unit, a spokesman for plant operator Williams Field Services said Opal operations haven’t been materially affected. The plant was expecting about 974 MMcf/d of throughput Monday, he said, which is close to the normal 1 Bcf/d or so.

Northwest said Monday afternoon it was pleased to announce that a 17-mile segment of its 26-inch line between Mt. Vernon and Snohomish in the state of Washington has been restored to service, returning about 16,000 Dth/d of the capacity that was removed from the system with the idling of the line between Sumas and Washougal, WA following last year’s rupture near Lake Tapps, WA and a subsequent rupture near Toledo, WA (see Daily GPI, Dec. 23, 2003). Northwest noted that the federal Office of Pipeline Safety (OPS) granted approval April 19 for it to restore service in the Mt. Vernon-Snohomish segment based on successful hydro testing with no failures. Following a formal hearing with OPS and the Washington Utilities Transportation Commission (WUTC) in Denver on Jan. 21, Northwest said it was prioritizing restoration of segments of the 278-mile Sumas-Washougal line that would provide the most capacity to the system (see Daily GPI, Feb. 2). It reported petitioning OPS last Friday to restore the hydro-tested sections of the Washougal-Chehalis segment and anticipates more such petitions “in the very near future” in its drive to completely reactivate the idled line this summer.

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