Anticipating
Our One Millionth NOVA Inventory Transfer (NIT)
Something
that started out as a service tool turned into a facilitator
for liquidity in the Alberta market.
NOVA Inventory
Transfers (NITs) are an evolution of Daily Inventory Transfers
(DITs), which were developed in 1990. DITs were a procedure
developed to fulfill the need to balance accounts for Alberta
customers over a monthly period.
In 1992,
supply/demand balancing was implemented through the Tolls, Tariff
and Procedure (TTP) committee as a pilot procedure. This process
was developed in response to linepack management concerns and
required customers to balance their Alberta System account on
a daily basis. To help support this new procedure, NITs were
introduced in 1993 as a daily balancing tool for our customers.
Free of charge, customers are able to transfer gas to and from
their accounts, for any number of days.
The NIT
service has become a valuable and highly utilized tool. In the
beginning, five NIT's totaled about 87 TJs. Today, we see approximately
4,500 NITs daily totaling over 43,000 TJs. Used initially as
an account-balancing tool, NITs have also added to the liquidity
of the market place. In the first couple of years, all NITs
were faxed, entered manually and filed. Today customers use
NrG for all their NIT transactions, not just on a daily basis
but for long term and future deals as well.
A
summary of NIT's in effect since November 1993 is available
online.
In anticipation
of our One-Millionth NIT, check out our "Pick the NIT and
WIN!" contest online
For more
information, please contact Hugh Paulin at (403) 920-5976 or
e-mail to hugh_paulin@transcanada.com.
Alberta
System Introduction to Contract Versioning
Tracking
the life of a contract just got easier thanks to the introduction
of contract versioning. Through an integrated gas management
system (project called Dovetail), contract versioning allows
for a contract to be amended, making it easier to link related,
past and future contracts. In the past, contracts had to be
completely replaced when modified due to renewals, reversions
of temporary assignments, and decreases resulting from transfers
and assignments. Contract versioning is currently used on our
Canadian Mainline System, so implementation to our Alberta System
has the added advantage of reducing costs for our customers.
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The
Tolls, Tariff, and Procedures Committee (TTP) assessed
the concept of contract versioning and a resolution to
adopt the practice was passed at the June 2002 meeting.
"Contract versioning will streamline contracting
practices for both our Alberta System customers and TransCanada,"
says Randy Pattison, Senior Specialist, Business and Systems
Integration. "It will be more efficient and much
simpler to track the life of a contract."
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The required
Information systems for contract versioning are currently being
developed. We hope to launch contract versioning sometime during
the third quarter of this year, provided that we receive approval
from the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board ("EUB").
TransCanada will provide a minimum of two weeks advance notice
to the EUB and customers of the effective date of the Tariff
amendments.
For further
information on contract versioning, please contact Randy Pattison
at (403) 920-5841or e-mail randy_pattison@transcanada.com. For
information on the TTP process, contact Dave Hands at (403)
920-5838 or e-mail dave_hands@transcanada.com.
Point
to Point Service Extension
As
part of the 2001 and 2002 Alberta System Rate Settlement, a
new Point to Point (P2P) Service was developed by industry and
approved by the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board (EUB) for
a two year period ending December 31, 2002. The intent was to
evaluate the Service during this initial period and evaluate
whether the Service should continue, be modified or discontinued
during the negotiations for the next Rate Settlement. Although
industry discussions of an Alberta short haul service are ongoing,
there is a possibility that industry agreement may not be reached
in a timely manner or that the EUB may not approve a service
filing for implementation by January 1, 2003.
In order
to ensure that parties contracting P2P Service prior to December
31, 2002 have continued access to the Service, the Tolls, Tariff,
and Procedures Committee (TTP) approved an extension of this
service until approval of a subsequent Alberta System short
haul service. In June 2002, the TTP gave its approval to an
extension of the P2P Service until December 31, 2003.
"The
extension of P2P Service provides the extra time required by
industry to consider a successor short haul service to the current
P2P. We are confident that a service that meets the needs of
intra-Alberta Stakeholders will be filed with the EUB by the
end of 2002 and in place in 2003," says Trudy Roome, Senior
Specialist, Western Pricing Design. "The extension provides
an assurance to those customers presently using P2P Service
that it will continue to be available after December this year."
There are
currently two P2P contracts for a total contracted volume of
102 million cubic feet per day (2873 e3m3/d).
For information
on the Point to Point Service, contact your Alberta System Customer
Representative. For information on the TTP process, contact
Dave Hands at (403) 920-583 or e-mail dave_hands@transcanada.com.
The
Fort Saskatchewan Decision
On
July 2, 2002 TransCanada received the Alberta Energy and Utilities
Board's (EUB) disappointing decision not to support our application
to extend our Alberta System into the Fort Saskatchewan area.
"We
are very disappointed with the decision," says Steve Clark,
vice-president of Gas Development and Director of Sales and
Marketing. "We were optimistic going into the hearing with
firm service delivery commitments for 121 million cubic feet
per day and 106 signed landowner agreements under our belts."
The EUB
found "the size of the market does not support the need
for additional capacity, and there are no compelling reasons
that would render the applied-for facilities necessary."
Please refer to the EUB web site for the full decision at http://www.eub.gov.ab.ca/bbs/documents/decisions/2002/2002-058.pdf.
Despite
the Board's decision, we will continue to keep moving forward,
and looking for ways to serve our Fort Saskatchewan customers
and new industrial customers. "We value these customers,"
Steve says. "We will keep working to find ways we can serve
them."
For more
information, please contact Steve Clark at (403) 920-2018 or
e-mail stephen_clark@transcanada.com.
Mainline Capacity Expected to Return to Seasonal Norms
Recently,
the Mainline System experienced some out-of-the ordinary events
that made for tighter capacity.
We have
experienced higher throughput on our system this summer compared
to last, causing some frustration to customers who want to transport
higher volumes to Eastern markets.
"Our
system capacity is comparable to last summer," explains
George Phillips, Manager, Mainline Operations Planning. "But
we're seeing higher volumes due to the drop in Alberta natural
gas prices."
The primary
reasons for this recent price drop are lower demand on our system
connecting to the California market and rapid storage refill
in Alberta. Consequently, there is more gas in Alberta looking
for an outlet. This results in price differentials supporting
higher demand for transportation down the TransCanada Mainline,
and more often than not over the last few weeks, nomination
for discretionary volumes have exceeded our capability.
Our Mainline
System has an average summer capacity of just under 7.0 Bcf
per day (Empress plus Saskatchewan receipts). However, July
and August are normally the lowest capacity months of the summer
season due mainly to the higher ambient temperatures experienced
across the system. Over the past few weeks we have experienced
unseasonably warm conditions across Canada and coincidentally
experienced several unplanned compressor breakdowns which reduced
our ability to move gas east of Winnipeg to eastern markets
via the Great Lakes and northern Ontario route. These conditions,
combined with the lower markets in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and
exports to the US Midwest, reduces the amount of gas that can
be moved from the Saskatchewan and Alberta supply areas. Therefore,
we experienced daily Mainline capacities in the range of 6.4
to 6.5 Bcf per day in mid-July. Now that the compression problems
have been rectified the capacity is expected to return to the
6.5 to 6.6 Bcf per day, with corresponding Empress border receipts
of 5.9 to 6.0 Bcf per day.
In an effort
to meet as much of the demand possible, the summer maintenance
program is being reviewed to ensure as much capacity as possible.
The philosophy of our maintenance program is to implement a
plan that schedules outages in a fashion that minimizes costs
and risk to firm service. If the maintenance is routine, not
critical to the integrity of the system, it may be delayed until
demand on the system returns to normal.
"Unfortunately,
unplanned outages are a part of this business," explains
George. "We have recently experienced a number of such
outages, but they have since been rectified. As always, there
could be additional outages, but we're well aware of the current
demand for transportation so we will respond quickly to any
breakdown to minimize impact to our customers."
The current
oversupply of gas in Alberta is expected to be short-lived.
"We can expect to see more normal western exports in August,
which will likely soften the current price differential we're
seeing between Alberta gas and other North American supply basins,"
says George.
For more
information, please contact George Phillips at (403) 920-6825
or e-mail george_phillips@transcanada.com.
Customer
Reporting Enhancements
TransCanada
has been working to enhance a number of our online reports to
make doing business with us even easier for our customers. One
of the enhanced online reports includes an electronic Receipt
Allocation Form (eRAF), also called the GA040. Every month since
May 2001, eRAFs for over 800 receipt stations were made available
to Alberta Common Stream Operators (CSOs) online. Operators
could view the finalized receipt station volumes and the estimated
monthly shipper allocations. Changes could then be made to the
allocations and submitted electronically for month-end gas balance
purposes. Included with the eRAF is an electronic Volume Energy
Summary that displays the daily measured volumes and the heating
value of the gas for the particular month.
During the
past year, TransCanada has refined and improved the eRAF system
several times. On July 25th, the last enhancements were put
into production, and include:
- The ability
to submit prior period amendments (GA040 PPA) - this completes
the external eRAF functionality.
- The ability
to add a customer to the eRAF - an enhanced internal and external
process for adding certain shipper allocations.
These enhancements
focus on improvements for the customer. TransCanada strives
to make things easier for our customers, encourage the use of
the eRAFs, and increase customer satisfaction with our electronic
transactional processes.
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Our
Customer Operational Reporting is accessible by Mainline
and Alberta customers through the TransCanada web site at
http://www.transcanada.com/, 24 hours a day, seven days
a week. To access these reports, have your NrG Highway user
id and password available. |
For the Alberta
System customers, there are two interactive forms that allow changes
to data online. These changes can then be submitted directly to
TransCanada. By providing online access to these forms, we hope
to minimize data integrity issues and achieve fax savings for
our customers.
TransCanada
is pleased to provide these Customer Operational Reporting enhancements.
For further information on these enhancements or how to access
and use the eRAFs, please contact Allison Attree at (403) 920-2610
at allison_attree@transcanada.com.
