Florida Gas Transmission tightened the negative imbalance tolerance on last week’s Overage Alert Day notice to 5% Sunday, then loosened it again to 15% Monday before lifting the notice Tuesday.

Citing the expected colder-than-normal temperatures for its “entire market area for the next several days,” Transco said that in order to meet the significant loads and ensure maintenance of linepack and operational flexibility, it will not allow make-up delivery transactions effective Wednesday until further notice. Additionally, it will restrict the tolerance at pooling points to 1% or 1,000 dekatherms for shippers with negatively scheduled imbalances, Shippers with positively scheduled imbalances at their pools will continue to be held to 4% tolerance levels, the pipeline said.

Northwest said Monday that a customer-specific Declared Overrun Entitlement Period will apply to individual customers with markets north of the Kemmerer (WY) Compressor Station “who take more than 10% in excess of their scheduled quantities for the day prior to the day a customer-specific entitlement is imposed.” Such entitlements will begin as early as Wednesday and continue to apply until further notice, the pipeline said. Also, based on the high level of gas scheduled northbound through the Kemmerer bottleneck this month, Northwest warned customers of a potential OFO. On Jan. 5, Northwest’s Jackson Prairie storage account stood at approximately 1.8 Bcf. By Jan. 19, it had dropped to about 1.0 Bcf. “In a matter of two weeks, between drafting and overscheduling Kemmerer,” Northwest said it lost approximately 800,000 dekatherms. As it was last year, overscheduling has been sustained, “but the level of overscheduling this year has been much higher…At this rate, without drafting, Jackson Prairie could drop to the OFO threshold of 700,000 dekatherms in seven days. We realize that the difference in price between Sumas and the Rockies is very high now. However, unless customers change their gas procurement practices and voluntarily buy more of their gas from Canadian sources, an OFO may be unavoidable.”

East Tennessee Natural Gas, which Tuesday was maintaining restrictions implemented more than a week earlier (see Daily GPI, Jan. 10), apparently is worried that those restrictions may not be enough to avert threats to system integrity or its firm service capability. Saying that “weather and load forecasts indicate the next several days to be the coldest on the system yet this winter,” ETNG advised shippers that it may be required to issue a Balancing Alert OFO. Any Balancing Alert issued will be directed to as limited an area or number of balancing parties as necessary, the pipeline said. ETNG affiliates Texas Eastern and Algonquin also continued restrictions from last week.

Repairs to the Bay Marchand 5 platform encountered unexpected delays and it was not returned to service Tuesday as anticipated (see Daily GPI, Dec. 24, 2002), Tennessee said. Tennessee now expects to complete the work later this week, keeping physical flow at seven upstream following meters suspended until Chart Time Saturday.

NGPL reported finishing maintenance on Unit #2 at Station 812 in Atoka County, OK on Sunday, four days ahead of schedule.

El Paso canceled Flagstaff Station maintenance that had been scheduled for Tuesday. A 60 MMcf/d reduction of North Mainline capacity resulting from operating Line 1204 between the Flagstaff and Williams Stations at lowered pressure pending possible repairs, combined with ongoing work on Line 1200, will continue until further notice.

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