Caprock Capacity Falls to 180,000 MMBtu/d Before Partial Recovery to 552 MMcf/d
Key Facts
Operating capacity through CAPROCK N fell to 180,000 MMBtu/d on October 28, against a primary capacity of 616,800 MMBtu/d, a reduction of 436,800 units, according to an EPNG maintenance notice published by PipeRiv. The following day, Natural Gas Intelligence said capacity had risen to about 552 MMcf/d, compared with 180 MMcf/d at its low and 616.8 MMcf/d before the outages. The improvement followed the company’s announcement that it had resolved force majeure events at the Roswell, Lincoln and Caprock stations. However, operational notices showed that capacity constraints remained, so the increase did not represent a full return to the previous level. Gas flows also fell to 871 MMcf/d on Thursday, from 1,063 MMcf/d on Wednesday, according to NGI.
Caprock constraints began with a loading valve problem, according to an EPNG notice that reduced operating capacity through CAPROCK N by 145,600 MMBtu/d and through LUSK by 30,331 units, effective with the evening cycle on October 28. In a notice issued on October 29, the company said the force majeure event at Caprock had been resolved, but Unit 2 remained unavailable because of a problem with the turbine-run connection. As a result, EPNG maintained a reduction of 64,448 units per day through CAPROCK N and 30,331 units through LUSK. These figures show that ending the force majeure declaration did not eliminate all operational effects of the station outage. The announced reductions also apply to specific capacity constraints and do not, by themselves, establish a general shortfall in regional gas supplies.
At Roswell, EPNG attributed the force majeure event to a fuel valve problem at the compressor station in Chaves County, New Mexico. The company announced that the event had been resolved and capacity through CAPROCK N restored, effective with the first intraday cycle on October 29. At Lincoln, the company attributed the event to a thrust probe problem at the compressor station in Lincoln County, then announced its resolution and the restoration of capacity through CAPROCK N on October 29. These specific causes differ from the Caprock outage, which was linked to a loading valve and then to a turbine-run connection problem in Unit 2. The notices therefore show a series of separate outages and staggered updates, rather than one simultaneous failure explaining all the change in flows.
On prices, NGI said gas prices in the San Juan Basin rose after the force majeure announcements, while Waha basis risk remained elevated. The report did not specify the size of the increase or a particular price, but linked San Juan’s move to the timing of the announcements and described Waha basis risk as persistent. The move came as flows fell on Thursday compared with Wednesday, even as nominal capacity rose from its low. The price reading remains separate from the capacity notices documenting operational constraints, since the latter do not by themselves establish a general shortfall in regional supply. NGI focused on the outages’ effect on local prices and spread risks without generalizing it to the entire U.S. gas market.
EPNG’s official portal at Kinder Morgan showed operating capacity at CAPROCK N of 180,000 MMBtu/d in the final evening cycle for October 29, with the same quantity scheduled and no additional operating capacity available. The portal also published an October maintenance update dated October 29, along with a notice opening confirmations for the third cycle that day. A new notice for the first cycle dated October 30 appeared, providing a subsequent operational update for tracking the constraints. These data place the continued limited capacity at CAPROCK N in the context of the partial recovery reported by NGI, without implying that the figure of 552 MMcf/d was available across all constraints or stations. The confirmation and maintenance updates published on the portal remain a reference for tracking developments after the force majeure resolution announcements.