By Jason Fordney

The loss of three natural gas pipelines is creating major concerns about Southern California’s gas and electricity supplies, with three state and local regulators saying that Los Angeles-area electricity generators could experience gas curtailments this winter.

The California Public Utilities Commission, California Energy Commission and Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) last week issued a new assessment of the situation suggesting that curtailments are more likely this winter than last because of pipeline ruptures — but much will depend on the weather. Southern California Gas’ Line 235-2 ruptured on Oct. 1 and also damaged Line 4000, adding to an existing outage of Line 3000, according to the report.

“Natural gas service is threatened to noncore customers, including electric generators, this winter,” the report said. “This threat occurs even though there is more gas in storage than at this time last year.”

The concerns arose even after SoCalGas’ Aliso Canyon gas storage facility resumed injections in July, despite objections from state agencies. (See Aliso Canyon Resumes Injections.) Operations at the facility had been halted following a massive methane release detected in October 2015 and finally plugged in February 2016. The California Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources determined it is safe for the company to resume injections at the site.

The agencies issuing last week’s report said that other actions under consideration include an emergency moratorium on new natural gas service connections in the Los Angeles County area served by Aliso Canyon.

“Another proposed measure would direct electricity generators to more frequently shift generation to facilities located outside the SoCalGas system to reduce gas use in December,” the agencies said. “This could allow SoCalGas to preserve storage inventories deeper into the winter.”

The report also said LADWP could delay electrical transmission upgrades until February in order to maintain access to power sources outside the region. The agencies are additionally considering slightly increasing the volume of gas that can be stored at Aliso Canyon.