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Enron Mail |
The reservation charge reduction applicable to TW's failure to deliver gas
under certain circumstances does NOT apply to either force majeure events or periods of unscheduled maintenance less than 10 days in any calendar quarter. Unscheduled maintenance is defined as unanticipated or unplanned maintenance on the pipeline system required to be performed to ensure that gas continues to flow in months other than Dec., Jan., Feb., July and Aug. Assuming we could even classify the proposed activity as "maintenance," I'm not sure we could get away with saying it was unanticipated or unplanned, as the Gallup expansion has been in the works for some time. I am also not completely comfortable calling this "force majeure" because part of the tariff definition is that the event was not within the control of either party; however, since the definition does include "binding order of any court or governmental authority," we could possibly say this is force majeure if we're reducing the pressure in order to comply with a DOT pipeline safety rule. (In that event, our notice on the EBB would be a force majeure notice.) If not, we can argue that since this is not "maintenance," but simply being done to construct the expansion in a safe and prudent manner, the shippers' rights are not triggered under the reservation charge reduction provisions. In that case, damages (if any) would have to be pursued under ordinary contract law. I realize that this is not a very satisfactory answer; however, the outage is going to be relatively short, and no shipper in recent memory has availed itself of the reservation charge reduction. I recommend we give shippers reasonable notice of the pressure reduction so that they can make alternate plans -- this will reduce the likelihood that they will feel revengeful. Please call (x30596) or e-mail if you have further questions.
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