CIG declared a Strained Operating Condition (SOC) that took effect Wednesday until further notice. The pipeline said its usual system flexibility is not available as a result of supplies in excess of markets north of the Springfield (CO) Compressor Station, the anticipated continuation of lower market requirements and the resulting high demand for storage injections. For the duration of the SOC, CIG will be unable to approve payback nominations to the pipeline or to accept any storage injection overrun requests. All interruptible storage shippers will be barred from nominating injections to their accounts. Finally, Auto Park and Loan rates will be raised to the maximum.

Westcoast reported Thursday that it has been “experiencing extremely high levels of linepack” in recent days. “This situation has developed as a result of shippers continuing to receive upstream volumes at the plant gates that are in excess of their approved deliveries to downstream parties. Much of the excess production is being gathered and processed from our processing plants.” The pipeline noted that as part of its newly implemented Dry Gas Overproduction pilot program, it had committed to controlling both third-party and our own processing facilities to approved volumes, “plus a tolerance when the authorized volumes exceeded 98% of the capacity of downstream laterals.” Continued overproduction by some parties is beginning to impact all other parties’ ability to produce their authorized volumes into the mainline, Westcoast said. To ensure safe operations and still give customers “an appropriate opportunity to produce and deliver their authorized volumes,” processing plant deliveries will be controlled so as not to exceed the authorized mainline receipts, it added. This discipline will be relaxed as linepack returns to more normal levels.

El Paso said the Guadalupe Station turbine will be down Sept. 12 to replace a gasket in the exhaust system. This outage, combined with ongoing Line 1103 maintenance, will reduce capacity through Pecos River Station by 260 MMcf/d.

Quarterly pigging of the Header and East Leg segments of the offshore Blue Water System is scheduled for Monday through Thursday of next week, Tennessee said. During this period, producers on the 500 Line upstream of Station 527 may encounter higher than normal pipeline pressure. Physical flow will be interrupted for about 12 hours Monday at South Marsh Island 76P.

©Copyright 2002 Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news report may not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in any form, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.