British Columbia natgas exports to Washington rise slowly after pipe blast

The amount of natural gas moving from British Columbia to Washington state through the Sumas hub started to rise on Friday after Enbridge Inc returned a pipeline to service following a pipe blast in British Columbia earlier in the week.

Enbridge said on Thursday it returned a 30-inch (76-centimeter) gas pipe in British Columbia that was shut due to a fire on an adjacent 36-inch line on Tuesday, leading to supply disruptions in British Columbia and Washington.

The amount of gas flowing through the Sumas Hub from British Columbia to Sumas fell from an average of 1.1 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) over the past 30 days to zero on Wednesday before rising to 0.2 bcfd on Thursday and Friday, according to data from Refinitiv.

One billion cubic feet of gas is enough to fuel about 5 million U.S. homes for a day.

In addition to cutting gas supplies to the Fortis BC gas utility in British Columbia and Puget Sound Energy in Washington, the pipeline shutdowns caused three refineries in Washington to shut or curb operations.

Fortis BC is a unit of Canadian energy company Fortis Inc .

Next-day prices at the Sumas hub slipped to $2.90 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) for Friday from $3.32 on Thursday, which was their highest since early January, according to data from SNL.

Gas pipes into Washington can transport about 1.8 bcfd from British Columbia, 2.6 bcfd from Idaho and 0.8 bcfd from Oregon.

Gas pipes out of Washington, meanwhile, can move about 0.05 bcfd to British Columbia, 0.06 bcfd to Idaho and 3.6 bcfd to Oregon.

Most of the gas that comes into Washington from Idaho ends up in California. That gas comes from Canada.

(Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)