Enstar warned Tuesday that it might lack enough natural gas to carry more than 150,000 Southcentral Alaska customers through winter, but no outage or service interruption had occurred by Thursday's cutoff, and its "not looking good" assessment remains an attributed utility judgment rather than an independent winter outcome [1].

The warning followed a Regulatory Commission of Alaska decision declining Enstar's request for an advance finding that a proposed Kenai storage project was prudent, a cost-treatment decision that could help unlock financing but did not prohibit the utility from building [1].

The proposal would store 25 billion cubic feet of gas in a depleted reservoir at an estimated cost of $240 million, and Enstar's filing projected an additional $10 to $12 on monthly customer bills; both figures are estimates rather than completed construction or realized charges, while the commission questioned when added storage and withdrawal capacity would be needed and noted a competing application for the site [1].

Enstar said it planned to seek reconsideration and was examining other storage options expected to cost more, longer-term imports could also raise prices, and company president John Sims said customers may be asked to lower thermostats if production and storage do not increase; that remains a possible conservation request rather than a blackout forecast [1].

No auditable same-day X post was recovered, so a blackout claim remains unverified and unobserved; the household service record still needs comparable production, storage and peak-day deficit figures, a curtailment order, regulator decisions and protections for vulnerable customers.

-- DARA OSEI, London