![](media/image1.jpeg){width="8.5in" height="3.5027777777777778in"}U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

**Office of Energy Assurance**

**ENERGY ASSURANCE DAILY**

###### March 26, 2004

**Highlights/Major Developments**

**Oil Tanker Crash Closes Part of East Coast I-95 in Bridgeport, CT**

Traffic in Bridgeport, Connecticut, dragged to a near-halt Friday
morning hours after an oil tanker crashed and burst into a ball of fire
on Interstate-95, causing extensive damage to the roadway and forcing
officials to close the interstate in both directions. Connecticut Gov.
John Rowland declared a state of emergency for Bridgeport and said it
will take at least two weeks to repair the road. The tanker carrying
9,000 gallons of heating oil collided with a car on an overpass,
jackknifed and exploded, creating enough heat to buckle part of the
southbound side of the Howard Avenue Overpass bridge, said state police
spokesman Paul Vance.

About 3,000 gallons of oil spilled onto the highway, Vance said. The
driver of the tanker and drivers in surrounding cars managed to get out
of their vehicles quickly and sustained minor injuries. Rowland said
declaring a state of emergency allows the state to seek federal funds to
cover the repairs. He estimated it will cost between \$3 million and \$4
million to repair the road.

CNN, March 26, 2004, 1047

<http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/Northeast/03/26/tanker.crash/index.html>

**Electricity**

**Return of California's San Onofre 2 Nuke to Grid Delayed**

The return to service of the 1,123 megawatt Unit 2 at the San Onofre
nuclear power plant in California has been delayed by about seven days
for additional maintenance, a plant spokesman said on Friday. The unit
was in start-up on Wednesday and expected to synchronize to the power
grid on Thursday. On Friday, however, it was being shut down for more
repairs. The spokesman said repairs were needed to a device that
monitors the temperature of reactor coolant. The unit was taken down
Feb. 9 for an expected 45-day outage. The San Onofre plant is in San
Clemente, California, about 60 miles north of San Diego. It has two
reactor units that can produce a total of about 2,200 MW, enough power
for around 2 million homes.

Reuters, March 26, 2004, 1259

**Fort Calhoun 1 Will Shut to Replace Reactor Seals, Company Says**

Nebraska's 478 Megawatts Fort Calhoun 1 nuclear-power plant is
undergoing unplanned maintenance, according to Omaha Public Power
District. The Fort Calhoun, Nebraska, plant is expected to be offline
late Friday to replace leaking reactor-coolant safety seals.

Bloomberg, March 26, 2004

Deseret's **Bonanza** in WECC tripped overnight and remains off early
Friday.

Genscape Overnight Update, March 26, 2004

**Clinton 1 Nuke Nears Full Power After Repair, Company Says** AmerGen
Power Company said its 930 Megawatts Clinton, IL, Clinton 1
nuclear-power plant increased electricity production to 98% after
completing repairs to the generator.

Bloomberg, March 26, 2004

**KeySpan to Start Up N.Y. City Power Plant Monday**

KeySpan Corp. said Friday it expects to start commercial operation of a
new 250-megawatt natural gas-fired power unit at its Ravenswood plant in
New York's borough of Queens on Monday. The new plant \-- the biggest
single power unit to enter service in the city since the 1960s \-- cost
the Brooklyn-based energy company about \$350 million to build. The
giant Ravenswood station, which KeySpan bought from New York electric
and natural gas utility Consolidated Edison Inc. in 1999 following the
deregulation of the state's electric market, provides about 25 percent
of the city generating capacity. With the new unit, Ravenswood\'s
capacity will increase to 2,410 MW.

Reuters, March 26, 1152

<http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/040326/utilities_keyspan_ravenswood_1.html>

**Progress Energy\'s Homeland, Fla., Power Plant Project Will Be
Region\'s Biggest**

With construction machinery and backhoes boring deep into the ground,
Progress Energy Florida recently began laying the foundation for its
third power plant in Homeland, south of Bartow. Upon its completion and
activation, which is slated for December 2005, the Hines Energy Complex
will become the biggest power plant in Central Florida, said Aaron
Perlut, a Progress Energy spokesman. It will have a generating capacity
of about 1,500 megawatts of electricity, he said \-- enough to power
950,000 homes and businesses.

<http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artikkel?SearchID=73166661051142&Avis=LL&Dato=20040324&Kategori=NEWS&Lopenr=403240335&Ref=AR>

**Petroleum**

**Motiva Refinery Operating at Reduced Rates**\
Motiva Enterprises LLC said its 170,000 barrel per day (bpd) Delaware
City, Delaware, refinery was operating at slightly reduced rates after a
small glitch early Friday. \"We are operating at moderately reduced
rates because of reduced steam production,\" a spokesman for the
refinery said. Earlier, a carbon monoxide boiler on the fluid catalytic
cracker was shut, but the cat cracker was still running, the spokesman
said. The spokesman said the plant would likely return to normal
production in \"a few days.\"
<http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/040326/energy_motiva_delawarecity_1.html>

**FCC Problem at Benicia Has Bay CARBOB Jumping**\
West Coast trading sources tell OPIS that Valero had to take down a
fluidic catalytic cracking unit down at its 153,000 b/d Benicia, Ca.
refinery. Early indications show that the 73,000 b/d FCC unit at Benicia
will be down for four days of unplanned maintenance and once the FCC is
back on line a 31,000 b/d reformer will undergo maintenance for four
days. Valero had not yet returned a call at press-time. CARBOB (gasoline
blendstock produced by refineries which meets California Air Resources
Board clean air standards when blended with ethanol) the Bay has been
firming up over the past 24 hours has traded at the \$1.35/gal level.
This morning Los Angeles CARBOB has traded in a wide range of
\$1.325-1.36/gal.\
OPIS Alerts March 26, 2004

**CITGO Will Boost Louisiana Refinery Output by 105,000 b/d**  

A new refinery in the U.S. hasn't been built for some thirty years, but
Citgo will add the equivalent of another plant, thanks to \$500-million
in projects that will see 105,000 b/d of additional crude processing
capacity added to the existing Lake Charles refinery. The work will see
the simultaneous construction of a crude vacuum expansion project and a
second gasoline hydrotreating unit. The crude vacuum expansion project
will enable the Lake Charles complex to process heavier crude streams
from Venezuela, according to Citgo president and CEO Luis Marin. The
additional hydrotreater will ensure that the refinery can make more
lower sulfur gasoline and diesel as required in U.s. markets this
decade. Lake Charles' output will rise from a current 320,000 b/d to
425,000 b/d, effectively making the plant the fourth largest refinery in
the country. All of the work should be completed by Spring 2005, sources
say.\
OPIS Alerts, March 26, 2004

#### 

#### Natural Gas 

**Northern Natural Gas Declared Force Majeure**

**Following An Explosion At An Iowa Delivery Point**

Northern Natural Gas declared force majeure following an explosion and
fire Thursday morning on its Des Moines Branchline delivery point about
1.5 miles east of Woodward, IA. \"Although service has been maintained
through rerouting of volumes, capacity has been reduced,\" the pipeline
said. It expected to complete repairs by Friday evening, but said it
will operate the line at a lowered pressure until an investigation is
complete.

NGI's Daily Gas Price Index, March 26, 2004

####### 

####### Other

# 

# Update \-- FBI Denies Link Between Terrorists, LNG Tankers

FBI officials vehemently denied yesterday recent assertions by former
White House terrorism czar Richard A. Clarke that the FBI learned in
December 1999 that terrorists had been slipping into Boston on liquefied
natural gas tankers from Algeria, yet failed to notify local
authorities. ''We did thoroughly investigate that LNG tanker situation
and came to the conclusion they were not being used to transport
terrorists into our country,'' said Kenneth Kaiser, the special agent
in-charge of the FBI's Boston office. ''We didn't brief the mayor that
there was an Al Qaeda cell here, because there wasn't one.'' According
to Kaiser, the FBI was investigating the thwarted 1999 ''millennium''
plot to blow up Los Angeles International Airport when it learned that
several people being questioned in Boston had entered the country by
stowing away on LNG tankers from Algeria. The Joint Terrorism Task
Force, which includes members from the Boston police and the
Massachusetts State Police, conducted an intensive investigation and
concluded that none of the stowaways were terrorists, Kaiser said. While
one of the men who was later convicted in the millennium plot,
Abdelghani Meskini, had arrived in Boston as a stowaway on an Algerian
tanker, Kaiser said there was no evidence that Meskini, who is
cooperating with authorities and denies being a terrorist, had any
terrorist links when he arrived in Boston in January 1995..

Boston Globe, March 26, 2004

 

**Saboteurs Set Crude Oil Pipeline on Fire in Southern Iraq**

Saboteurs set a secondary crude oil pipeline feeding southern Iraqi
export terminals on fire on Friday, witnesses said. Iraqi guards on duty
at Shuaiba, an area near the city of Basra, said saboteurs ignited oil
that leaked from the pipeline and firefighters were yet to arrive on the
scene.

A pipeline network fed from southern oilfields passes through Shuaiba on
the way to Gulf export terminals.

Reuters, March 26, 2004, 0304

**Energy Prices**

+-------------------------------+-----------+-----------+------------+
|                               | **Latest  | **Week    | **Year     |
|                               | (3        | Ago**     | Ago**      |
|                               | /26/04)** |           |            |
+-------------------------------+-----------+-----------+------------+
| **CRUDE OIL**                 | 35.61     | 38.09     | 38.71      |
|                               |           |           |            |
| **West Texas Intermediate     |           |           |            |
| US**                          |           |           |            |
|                               |           |           |            |
| \$/Barrel                     |           |           |            |
+-------------------------------+-----------+-----------+------------+
| **NATURAL GAS**               | 5.16      | 5.49      | 4.90       |
|                               |           |           |            |
| **Henry Hub**                 |           |           |            |
|                               |           |           |            |
| \$/Million Btu                |           |           |            |
+-------------------------------+-----------+-----------+------------+

> Source: Reuters

**This Week in Petroleum** from the Energy Information Administration
(EIA)

[*http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/twip/twip.asp*](http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/twip/twip.asp)

Updated on Wednesdays

**Weekly Petroleum Status Report** from EIA**\
**[*http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/weekly_petroleum_status_report/wpsr.html*](http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/weekly_petroleum_status_report/wpsr.html)

Updated after 1:00pm (Eastern time) on Wednesdays

**Natural Gas Weekly Update** from EIA

[*http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/ngw/ngupdate.asp*](http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/ngw/ngupdate.asp)

Updated after 2:00 pm (Eastern time) on Thursdays