GMSA Natural Gas situation improving

02/20/2021

The City of Grove/GMSA has received notification that this morning Southern Star has released their Operational Flow Order (OFO) for the transmission pipeline that delivers gas to our system.  In general, this action opens the transmission line to move gas more freely and without the restrictions that were implemented this past week because of the overwhelming demand for capacity on their line.

With that notification, GMSA is ending the gas emergency at this time with a word of caution and a request that all customers ease back into what would be considered “normal” usage by incrementally increasing consumption over the next 24 hours.  This will help by not overwhelming the gas system all at once with a big spike in usage. 

In addition, GMSA is and will continue to have to purchase spot market gas in all likelihood through the end of February to cover the demand over and above our nominations.   Constellation is working on acquiring additional blocks of nominated gas for the balance of February and has already nominated a significant block of additional gas for March to assist with replacing gas in our storage.   Spot market gas for this weekend is priced at a reasonable unit cost that thankfully continues to move downward and closer to the pricing that was in place before this extreme weather event.   Nevertheless, the more we can continue to conserve at some level through the end of February, the more we can limit the amount of gas we have to buy outside of our nominated amounts.Again, it will not be until we receive our bills in the latter part of March or possibly April from Constellation and Southern Star will GMSA know how these costs may impact your monthly utility bill.

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