CIG declared a force majeure Monday evening after experiencing third-party damage to the Big Horn Lateral in northern Wyoming (the bulletin board notice incorrectly identified it as the Wind River Lateral, a spokesman said). The lateral was shut in north of Lost Cabin Station between Block Valves 7 and 8. The outage required that volumes be cut to zero at Elk Basin Station for Tuesday’s gas day. CIG anticipated that line repairs would be completed in time to resume normal operations by Cycle 4 nominations Tuesday (about 8 p.m. MDT).

Transco said an unplanned shutdown of the North Terrebonne Gas Processing Plant in South Louisiana occurred Saturday. It was informed that the plant is expected to return to normal service for Thursday’s gas day, but advised shippers that nominations for plant thermal reduction (PTR) volumes should be reduced until the plant’s return to service.

Sonat reported having to shut in the Main Pass 72 receipt point until further notice due to an unscheduled outage of upstream third-party facilities. The pipeline ceased accepting nominations for the point effective with Monday’s Evening Cycle activity for Tuesday’s gas day.

Northwest said design capacity of 330,000 Dth/d will be cut to zero for periods of 18-30 hours on Aug. 27, Aug. 30 and Sept. 4 in its Vernal segment near Grand Junction, CO during repairs of pipe anomalies discovered in a pigging project earlier this year. The pipeline said it will attempt to mitigate shipper impact, but “there is a high probability that an impact to firm volumes may occur as a result of this work.” See the bulletin board for details about affected points.

El Paso said Line 1204 pigging facility installations between Gallup and Window Rock Stations were preventing it from moving the total volume of gas scheduled. The capacity of the North Mainline and San Juan Basin were reduced further by 100 MMcf/d effective with Cycle 4 Monday and with Cycle 2 Tuesday. That was in addition to an existing 360 MMcf/d in North Mainline/San Juan capacity cuts related to maintenance.

Transco reported a new change in the outage schedule for a project involving third-party abandonment and removal of the Eugene Island Block 129 Auxiliary No. 1 and Auxiliary No. 2 Platforms (see Daily GPI, May 23). The project was dived into five outage periods, of which two have been completed. The third work period, scheduled Aug. 22-May 1, will impact only 11 MMcf/d at one meter. A concurrent fourth outage set for Aug. 24-Sept. 1 will affect 112 MMcf/d at 22 meters. A subproject (labeled 4a) is estimated to run from Aug. 28 to Sept. 2 and affect 11 MMcf/d at one meter. The fifth and final outage, also affecting 11 MMcf/d but at eight meters, is scheduled for Sept. 4-9. Transco representatives will communicate with receipt point operators as soon as it is able to resume accepting nominations from individual blocks.

Questar has scheduled the annual Department of Transportation inspection for Oak Spring Station units 2 and 3 for Aug. 22-28. During this period, deliveries to the Elberta and QGC/104 points will be limited to 140,000 Dth/d. Based on current nominations, 10% of flex nominations are expected to flow.

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