Florida Gas Transmission lifted a lengthy Overage Alert Day notice Friday, while Northern Natural Gas lifted for Saturday a System Overrun Limitation that had been in effect for two days.

Northwest asked shippers not to draft the system and to voluntarily reduce throughput through the Kemmerer (WY) Compressor Station over the weekend. Kemmerer has been scheduled over capacity since Oct. 22, Northwest said. Though forecasts indicated some warming for the weekend, temperatures are expected to remain cold, it added. Northwest brought its Jackson Prairie storage balancing account up to 1.4 Bcf on Oct. 22, but that was down to 1.2 Bcf Thursday. “Considering the severity of the weather and the constant high throughput at the Kemmerer Compressor [Station], the reduction in Northwest’s balancing account is relatively moderate,” it said, thanking customers “for using their own storage to partially cover supply shortages instead of drafting Northwest for the full shortage.” However, if the Jackson Prairie balancing account decline continues to certain levels specified in guidelines announced last year, system entitlements or OFOs may become necessary, the pipeline said.

NGPL reported being informed that some processing plants on the Louisiana Line will not be operating during November. Based on current scheduling and expected operating conditions, NGPL did not anticipate any Btu content issues Friday but said it will monitor the Louisiana Line for any changes in the situation. Based on limitations of downstream deliveries, shippers in Segments 23, 24 and 25 may become affected by Btu issues, it added.

Based on inspections of unscheduled unit outages at its York and Auburn Compressor Stations (see Daily GPI, Oct. 30), Sonat said Friday it expects to return to service the Auburn unit by mid-November and the York unit by the end of November. It still believes that operational changes can be made to prevent any FT reductions during the outages, but said forward-haul IT “on a peak day will be reduced significantly.”

Due to construction on its SM-80 segment, including unscheduled maintenance and pipeline replacement mandated by a class location change, Columbia Gas expects to restrict non-firm capacity through Lanham Station “more frequently and to lower levels than is typical for the early heating season.” These conditions are likely to continue through November and possibly into December, the pipeline said, but actual restrictions will depend on weather and system load.

As of last Friday, Tennessee will allow SA Rate Schedule customers the option to elect to not be force balanced on a daily basis at pool meters. “Eligible customers must demonstrate their ability to resolve, subject to available capacity, any remaining pool imbalances by the last scheduling cycle of the gas day,” the pipeline said. It will offer this flexibility on a month-to-month trial basis for five months. Tennessee reminded customers they can use Park and Loan and storage services to help manage pool imbalances.

The Williams Station 1B and 5B units will be down one at a time Wednesday for gasket replacements and minor repairs, El Paso said. Combined with previously planned maintenance at Leupp Station 11A and on Line 1200 between Flagstaff and Williams stations, North Mainline capacity will be reduced by 35 MMcf/d.

©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.