El Paso remained in an Unauthorized Overpull Penalty situation Friday due to low linepack and forecasts of cold weather in its operating area. The pipeline reported being “under withdrawal” at its Washington Ranch storage facility. Shippers were urged to review the performance of suppliers to insure that receipts were sufficient to cover deliveries. El Paso said it lacked the flexibility to offer paybacks or allow overpulls during the UOP period, which was declared Thursday. It added that markets will not be kept whole and limits will be placed on scheduled volumes at underperforming interconnects to insure system integrity.

Transwestern reported experiencing a force majeure event Friday at the La Plata Compressor Station in southwest Colorado. La Plata (Ignacio) capacity was reduced from 500,000 MMBtu/d to 275,000 MMBtu/d and allocations began with Cycle 3 nominations for Friday’s gas day.

Divers have assessed the damage that caused an unscheduled outage of Sonat‘s Main Pass 311A line offshore Louisiana (see Daily GPI, Dec. 16) and are formulating a repair plan, the pipeline said Friday. “Our best available information at this time indicates the outage could be several weeks,” it added. No nominations are being accepted at the Main Pass 311A, 311B, 301, 311A Buy Back and 311B Buy Back blocks until the line is back in service.

Northern Natural Gas said its Sunray Station will be down Jan. 16-17 for replacement of a cooling tower, affecting 250,000 MMBtu/d at four points.

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