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

**Office of Energy Assurance**

**ENERGY ASSURANCE DAILY**

**December 22, 2004**

**Electricity\
**

# Power Outage Affects Thousands Of Customers

A failed circuit-breaker caused a widespread power outage in Rancho
Bernardo Tuesday afternoon, San Diego Gas & Electric officials said.
About 10,600 customers lost power shortly before 1 p.m. Traffic signals
were also knocked out. The outage affected residents between Rancho
Bernardo Road and Highland Valley Road for about one hour. SDG&E was
able to restore power to other customers within 30 minutes.\
<http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/4015533/detail.html>

**Basin Electric plans 250-MW plant in heart of Powder River Basin**

Basin Electric Power Cooperative intends to build a single-unit, 250-MW
coal-fired power plant in the heart of the southern Powder River Basin,
with a design on the drawing board that would allow for an additional
unit if needed. Although site selection has not been finalized,
officials plan to have the Gillette, Wyo.-area power plant operational
by 2011, Basin said Monday. The plant will be 100% owned and operated by
Basin Electric. <http://www.platts.com/Coal/News/4162764.xml?S=n>

**Dominion Meets Record Winter Peak Electricity Demand**\
Dominion, one of the nation\'s largest energy companies, met an
unofficial record winter one-hour peak demand from its Virginia and
North Carolina electricity customers Monday. Heating systems kicked into
high gear Sunday and Monday as temperatures plummeted into the teens
across Virginia and northeastern North Carolina. Customers demanded an
estimated 16,542 megawatts of electricity from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. Monday,
easily surpassing the old mark of 16,133 megawatts set Jan. 23, 2003.
The Dominion all-time record peak demand is 17,084 megawatts set July
29, 2002. <http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/041222/dcw007_1.html>

# 

# TXU Texas Martin Lake 3 Power Unit Shut, Seen Back Soon

Dallas-based energy company TXU Corp.\'s 750-megawatt unit 3 at the
Martin Lake coal-fired power station in Texas shut on Dec. 22 due to a
lost primary air fan, the company told Texas regulators in a report.

Reuters, 1415 December 22, 2004

**Salem 2 Nuclear Reactor in New Jersey Reduces Production\
**Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. reduced production at its Salem 2
nuclear reactor in southern New Jersey to 80 percent of capacity early
this morning to allow for maintenance on a nearby transmission line.\
Bloomberg news 0902 December 22, 2004

**Petroleum**

# Colonial Line to Mid-Atlantic Shut; NY Line Operating

Colonial Pipeline\'s Line 4 which takes oil products from Greensboro,
North Carolina, to Dorsey Junction in Woodbine, Maryland west of
Baltimore, a company official said on Wednesday. Emergency maintenance
work began Monday afternoon and the line will up \"as soon as possible\"
but there was no clear prognosis, the official said. The line takes
distillate and gasoline fuels from the tank farm in Greensboro to Dorsey
Junction. Maryland and Virginia Colonial customers are getting shipments
because of \"breakout\" storage, the official said. There was no leak in
the line.\
Reuters, 1019 and 1139 December 22, 2004

# BP Texas City Plant Restarts Gasoline Unit

BP Plc restarted a gasoline-producing fluidic catalytic cracking unit at
the 437,000 barrel per day (bpd) refinery in Texas City, Texas, on
Wednesday after an electrical problem shut it down, according to a
filing with Texas environmental regulators. An air blower on FCC No. 3
was switched off by the electrical problem at about 12:45 a.m. CST (0645
GMT on Wednesday leading to the cat cracker\'s shutdown, according to
the report filed with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
Workers immediately began a restart of the unit, according to the
filing. The unit was operating by 1:30 a.m. CST (0730 GMT).

Reuters, 1245 December 22, 2004

# [More Problems for PetroCanada at Terra Nova](http://www.energyintel.com/DocumentDetail.asp?document_id=137894) **Petro-Canada continues to experience problems at its Terra Nova oil field offshore Newfoundland, even after shutting in production for a month from Nov. 21 after an oil spill of approximately 1,000 barrels into the Atlantic Ocean. Oil Daily, December 22, 2004**

# Norway Delays Snorre Oil Field Restart

Norway\'s Petroleum Safety Authority said on Wednesday it would bar
energy group Statoil from restarting its Snorre and Vigdis oil fields in
the North Sea, which had been planned to take place by the end of the
week. The 130,000 barrel per day (bpd) Snorre field and the linked
75,000 bpd Vigdis satellite field have been shut since a gas leak at
Snorre A on Nov. 28 forced a helicopter rescue of most of the crew in
fear of a blowout.

Reuters, 1659 December 22, 2004

# Explosion Ruptures Mexico Oil Pipeline, 7 Injured

An explosion ruptured a crude oil pipeline in the eastern Mexican state
of Veracruz on Wednesday and injured seven people, state oil monopoly
Pemex said. The oil flow at the pipeline near the port of Coatzacoalcos
was cut off by the incident, but a Pemex spokeswoman had no immediate
details of the impact on supply or whether exports could be affected.
Mexico is the world\'s No. 5 producer of oil by volume and a key
supplier to the United States.

Reuters, 1639 December 22, 2004

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# Nigerian Oil Supervisors End Pay Strike

Staff of Nigeria\'s Department of Petroleum Resources have called off
their indefinite strike after signing an agreement with management on
improved working conditions, union leaders said on Wednesday. Oil
multinationals producing Nigeria\'s 2.3 million barrels of oil per day
had earlier said the lockout did not disrupt the OPEC member\'s
exports.\
Reuters, 1030 December 22, 2004

# Shell Declares Force Majeure on Some Nigeria Crude

Royal Dutch Shell Group on Wednesday declared a force majeure effective
from midnight affecting 114,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Nigerian Bonny
Light crude, a company spokesman said. He said the measure followed a
community dispute in the eastern Niger Delta where some production has
been shut in since Dec. 5 when villagers blocked some flow stations
operated by the company. Separately, a trading source said there would
likely be five to eight days of delays for Bonny Light cargoes loading
for the balance of December and the whole of January, and three to four
cargo cancellations in that period.

Reuters, 1142 December 22, 2004

# Shell Canada Oil Sands Unit Faces Another Delay

Shell Canada Ltd.\'s oil sands operation will run at reduced rates for
another month due to a leak in a key processing unit that has been shut
down since October, the company said on Tuesday. Part of one production
train at Shell\'s Scotford upgrader requires extensive repairs that will
last until the end of January, it said. The upgrader is producing at
about 65 percent of its 155,000-barrel-a-day capacity.

Reuters, 1616 December 21, 2004

# 

# Natural Gas

### Northern Natural Gas Calls for System Overrun Limitation in all Market Areas

A SOL day is being called for the gas day of Thursday 12/23/04 due to
forecasted minimum temperatures of below zero in all Market Area zones.
For further information, please call your customer service rep.\
DDVC penalties are applicable to the bumped shipper\'s quantity.
<http://www.northernnaturalgas.com/infopostings/asp/atAGlanceNotices.asp?id_priority=Y&company=179#19336>

**Columbia Gas's TCO (Transmission Company) Declares Gas Day for
December 23**

The gas day of December 23, 2004 will be deemed to be a \"Critical Day\"
in Market Areas 2, 4, 6, 7, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30,
31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, and 40.

<http://www.columbianavigator.com/Ebb/>

**Florida Gas Transmission Posts Potential Underage Alert Day for
December 22**

Temperatures in Florida are currently forecasted to be very mild today,
and FGT linepack is high; therefore, for the upcoming gas days, FGT
would like to alert their customers in FGTs Market Area that there is
the potential that FGT will issue an Underage Alert Day.
<http://www.hottap.enron.com/index.jsp?companyName=FGT&pg=notices_CR>

### Midwestern Gas Transmission Posts Imbalance Charge Warning

An OFO watch/Daily Imbalance Charge warning has been placed on the
following LMS Balancing Parties: Peake Energy, Danville, Marshall Sales,
Sugar Creek, and Community Nat. Gas. Midwestern Gas Transmission is
requesting that these Balancing Parties take immediate action to correct
this out of tolerance imbalance situation.\
<http://www.mgt.nborder.com/>

**Other News**

Nothing to Report.

**Energy Prices**

+-------------------------------+-----------+-----------+------------+
|                               | **Latest  | **Week    | **Year     |
|                               | (12       | Ago**     | Ago**      |
|                               | /22/04)** |           |            |
+-------------------------------+-----------+-----------+------------+
| **CRUDE OIL**                 | 44.05     | 44.21     | 31.71      |
|                               |           |           |            |
| **West Texas Intermediate     |           |           |            |
| US**                          |           |           |            |
|                               |           |           |            |
| \$/Barrel                     |           |           |            |
+-------------------------------+-----------+-----------+------------+
| **NATURAL GAS**               | 7.05      | 7.04      | 6.32       |
|                               |           |           |            |
| **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