March 2010 Vol. 237 No. 3

EagleBurgmann, a manufacturer of mechanical seals, systems, packing and expansion joints, announced March 9 that Emery Johnson has accepted the position of Dry Gas Seal Sales Manager for North America.

Enterprise Products Partners and Enterprise GP Holdings L.P. announced on March 29 the death of Chairman Dan L. Duncan, 77, the previous night at his home in Houston. Duncan co-founded Enterprise Products Company in 1968 and took Enterprise Products Partners public in July 1998.

The International Pipeline & Offshore Contractors Association (IPLOCA) has a new address: Chemin des Papillons 4, 1216 Cointrin/Geneva, Switzerland. Phone +41 022 306 02 30; Fax: +41 022 306 02 39.

Deepwater EU Ltd., the European subsidiary of Houston-based Deepwater Corrosion Services Inc., has created a protection design and project management center at the University of Surrey Research Park in Guildford, UK.

Tulsa, OK-based Darby Equipment Company has hired three employees to fill key management and engineering positions. Nick Minden joined Darby as chief financial officer. Joining Darby as senior mechanical engineer is Jeff Rollow. Robyne Chatham is now the purchasing agent at Darby.

This mid-point in my term as NAPCA president is an ideal time to take stock of the last 12 months and look forward to the important work that remains to be completed. In 2009, the NAPCA Strategic Planning Committee commissioned a survey of members to help assess the state of our association and determine future concerns.

William George Bruce Gant of Calgary died Jan. 31. He was 82. Gant was an honorary member and past president (1963-64 and 1970-71) of the Pipe Line Contractors Association of Canada.

Brendan Ryan has enjoyed the opportunity to serve on the NAPCA board of trustees since 2008. He is Vice President and General Manager of Bredero Shaw’s North American region, which operates from eight locations in Canada and the United States. Bredero Shaw is a division of ShawCor.

ROSEN USA revealed its latest inline inspection technologies during an exclusive viewing party at the Pipeline Pigging and Integrity Management Conference held in Houston, Texas.

Socotherm LaBarge was recently informed that its client, Technip France, would be making a donation of $8,000 to the local fire department. This donation was to be strictly based on Socotherm LaBarge’s health, safety and environment (HSE) performance. It’s a good story that tells two important facts about our industry.

To have been a fly on the wall when GE Chairman and CEO Jack Welch picked up the phone in 1997 and called one of his rising young stars, a fellow named Claudi Santiago, about heading a new business segment that would later be called GE Oil & Gas.

The coating is the premier external corrosion protection method for pipelines. As such, the selection and continued integrity of any parent or rehabilitation pipeline coating is of paramount importance. It is the coating that determines cathodic protection (CP) requirements and the magnitude of pipeline maintenance expenditures.

In the United States, the annual cost associated with corrosion damage of structural components is greater than the combined annual cost of natural disasters, including hurricanes, storms, floods, fires and earthquakes(1). Similar findings have been made by studies conducted in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan.

Gamechanger is just one of the terms being used to describe emerging shale gas plays across North America. In light of the red-hot intensity surrounding the largest of these, the Marcellus Shale Gas play, now recognized as the largest unconventional natural gas reserve in the world, it seems particularly relevant to remember the Greek philosopher Heraklietos and his axiom, that change is the only constant in the universe.

Different concrete mixes are used in various applications in the oil and gas industry, from oil well cementing to providing stability to offshore platforms. Concrete is also used in protecting oil and gas pipelines, most of them made of carbon steel, or providing them negative buoyancy in offshore applications and other wet environments.

External corrosion direct assessment (ECDA) involves a large of amount of data resulting from the associated indirect inspections and direct examinations. It also requires data to even begin with pre-assessment activities.

One of the key factors in meeting the design life requirement of an oil and gas flow or export line depends on the accuracy of corrosion prediction and its management. Therefore, the assessment of internal corrosion of a pipeline system must also include examining the mechanism by which corrosion is expected and understanding how it is most likely to occur.

Cliff Johnson, director of Public Affairs at NACE International, The Corrosion Society, recently assembled a panel of NACE pipeline corrosion control experts to answer a series of questions on how recent regulations and developments are affecting the pipeline industry.

Forecasting the prices of commodities such as natural gas and crude oil is far from a scientific endeavor. Sure, statistics, computer modeling, mathematics and more scientific means play a role in the eventual outlook, but it is pure art. A ouija board would be an ideal instrument in the forecasting business.

Oil is set to hold in its current range this year, although some upward movement could be possible, BP's chief economist Christof Ruehl said recently.

Buckeye Partners L.P. has completed the sale of its NGL pipeline system to DCP Midstream Partners for $22 million.

The Bulgarian parliament has ratified the inter-governmental agreement on the Nabucco gas transport project, implicitly confirming its preference for Nabucco over Gazprom’s South Stream.

Cegelec has been awarded a contract by Qatar Petroleum to replace the turbine and compressor control system for two natural gas liquids production trains in Mesaieed, Qatar.

China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) has launched commercial operations on the 2,745-km western segment of the Second West-East gas pipeline, which, when fully completed, will be the longest pipeline transmission network in the world.

Corus has received a letter of award worth nearly £200 million from Total E&P UK Ltd. regarding a pipeline to serve the Laggan-Tormore offshore gas field development in the region West of the Shetlands.

CRC-Evans/Global Pipelines will provide onshore double jointing of production lines for the EnCana Deep Panuke natural gas field located 155 miles southeast of Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Duke Energy is exploring conversion of two of the units at its Gallagher power plant from coal to gas.

Enbridge Inc. has an agreement with FCCL Partnership to provide additional pipeline and terminal facilities to support expansion of the Christina Lake enhanced oil project which is operated by Cenovus Energy.

Entrepose Contracting announced the acquisition of Horizontal Drilling International (HDI) by Spiecapag, its 100% subsidiary.

The Fayetteville Express Pipeline (FEP), a 50/50 joint venture between Energy Transfer Partners and Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, began construction on March 8.

Frontier Gas Services, LLC has acquired two gas gathering systems located in the Fayetteville Shale in Faulkner and Conway Counties, AR.

Recently in Budapest, First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Viktor Zubkov and Hungarian Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai signed documents incorporating the South Stream Hungary Zrt joint engineering company.

Over the next two years GL Noble Denton plans to hire more than 700 new technical personnel, engineers and marine operations specialists.

Regency Energy Partners LP, Alinda Capital Partners LLC and an affiliate of GE Energy Financial Services recently placed the Haynesville Expansion Project and Red River Lateral into service.

More than 20 international engineering firms have applied for approval to bid on an Abu Dhabi pipeline project worth $US700 million.

Japanese steelmakers JFE Steel Corp. and Marubeni-Itochu Steel were awarded a large-volume pipe order for the Chevron-operated Gorgon LNG development in Australia.

ShawCor Ltd.’s pipecoating division, Bredero Shaw, has entered into a joint venture with Russian offshore pipeline contractor OOO ArkhTekhnoProm to establish a pipe-coating facility in the Arkhangelsk Region.

Pembina Pipeline Corp. has announced a spending plan for 2010 of $240 million that places a priority on expanding its oil sands and heavy oil business.

Petrobras rose from the ninth to the fourth place in the ranking of the 50 biggest energy companies in the world according to the PFC Energy think tank.

Moscow and Ankara have agreed to accelerate efforts to build the $2.5 billion Samsun-Ceyhan oil pipeline in Turkey, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said, signaling that a similar, Russia-backed link through Bulgaria and Greece may no longer be in the cards.

Southern Union Company announced March 15 that it received approval from FERC to place its Trunkline LNG Infrastructure Enhancement Project (IEP) into service.

The Alaska Pipeline Project has filed its plan with the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to obtain approval to conduct the first natural gas pipeline open season to develop Alaska’s vast natural gas resources.

Since the advent of miniature cameras, plant and utility personnel have used them to assess pipe condition and troubleshoot problems. Over the years, new delivery mechanisms have emerged to carry cameras deeper and deeper into pipelines while capturing increasingly better images.

Green solutions can often mean spending a great deal of green. From new departments full of power- optimization professionals who are searching for the best energy-savings solutions to researching the robust offering of energy-saving equipment, pipeline companies have their work cut out navigating the maze.

The American Gas Association (AGA) announced March 10 that it will sponsor a "strategic conference and technical exhibition revolving around new discoveries of shale gas" November 3-5 at the Gaylord Texan Resort in the Dallas, TX metro area.

BENTEK Energy, LLC, predicts that growth in natural gas production from the Marcellus Shale in the Appalachian Basin will result in widespread disruption to regional flow patterns and downward pressure on prices in the Northeast region.

The April 2010 natural gas futures contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) recently hit a new low of $4.036 per MMBtu. “Last week, price support at $4.25 per MMBtu crumbled quickly following the release of the storage report,” says Valerie Wood, President of Energy Solutions, Inc.

EnerSys Corporation, a Houston-based upstream energy services company specializing in custody transfer measurement, SCADA and automation for oil and gas operations, announced a partnership with User Center Designed Services (UCDS) March 28. UCDS specializes in situation awareness and human factors in the control room.

The need to address climate change and the expected surge in energy demand from the developing world have moved energy efficiency to the top of the agenda for government and business, according to a new report by IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates (IHS CERA) and the World Economic Forum.

Non-profit organization American Clean Skies Foundation (ACSF) filed comments with the EPA March 22 stating that the EPA's tougher proposed air quality standards for ozone could be met, in part, by greater use of natural gas for power generation and transportation.

The changes to the EPA's Mandatory Greenhouse Gas Reporting Rule (MRR) announced March 22 mean that owners and operators of petroleum and natural gas facilities not previously subject to reporting under the existing MRR must now report their emissions, according to environmental law firm Vinson & Elkins.

Siemens is building a new production plant for 60-Hertz gas turbines at its existing facility in Charlotte, North Carolina. The initial investment will be approximately $135 million. Production is slated to start in the fall of 2011.

TechCorr's Long Range Guided Wave Ultrasonic Technique (LRGUT) was designed to inspect 100 percent of a pipe segment from one single location.

New products and innovations from Lincoln Electric, Wasco Energy and Deepwater Corrosion, GE Sensing & Inspection, BJ Services, R&M Energy, BS Coatings, Dresser, Applus RTD, Mokveld Valves BV, MSA and TechCorr.

What's new in Corrosion Control from Rosen, Henkels & McCoy, International Paint Protective Coatings, NACE, Denso North America, NDT Systems, TechCorr, Mesa Corrosion Control, MATCOR, Farwest Corrosion Control, GE Sensing & Inspection and more.