SynMax Research: On September 25, the Equitrans pipeline reported a substantial decline in production receipts relative to expectations derived from prior days. A drop of this magnitude can alarm analysts, traders, and counterparties, as it typically implies a corresponding decline in upstream production feeding the pipeline.
Critically, the Equitrans pipeline had not posted any maintenance or force majeure event that would account for this large drop in production receipts during that time. Furthermore, interconnect flows on the Equitrans system showed only normal variation, further contradicting a significant, unusual production receipt decline.
A drop of that magnitude in production receipts should see some maintenance or force majeure update on the critical notices or planned service outage update for Equitrans pipeline. Subsequently, in the following pipeline/data-reporting update, the figures were revised upwards very significantly, essentially eliminating the vast majority of the September 25 decline.
Moving forward, any large, unconfirmed drop in production receipt data from Equitrans must be treated with caution, especially when it is not corroborated by pipeline maintenance or a force majeure event and if the associated interconnect data indicates normal variation.