October 2011, Vol. 238 No. 10

Enterprise Products Partners L.P. and Duncan Energy Partners L.P. announced completion of the merger of DEP with a subsidiary of EPD.

Hess Corp. acquired Marquette Exploration LLC and other leases in Ohio’s Utica Shale, boosting its acreage position by 85,000 net acres at a cost of $750 million.

Advertisers from the print edition of <em>Pipeline & Gas Journal</em>, October 2011, Vol. 238 No. 10.

In September 2011, Rosen celebrated its thirtieth anniversary. Today it stands as a leading privately owned company serving the oil and gas industry with inspection, integrity, and rehabilitation products and services. For 30 years, the company has worked to provide the industry with advanced inspection and integrity solutions to ensure safe and economical operation of a wide range of assets and facilities.

MarkWest Liberty Midstream & Resources, L.L.C. announced three critical milestones in the ongoing development of the hydrocarbon-rich area of the Marcellus Shale. The first milestone was made by Sunoco Logistics L.P. of completion of the Mariner West open season and execution of definitive transportation agreements.

Sunoco, Inc. plans to exit its refining business and has begun a process to sell its refineries located in Philadelphia and Marcus Hook, PA. Sunoco is conducting a comprehensive strategic review to determine the best way to deliver value to shareholders including how best to utilize the company’s strong cash position and maximize the potential for Sunoco’s logistics and retail businesses.

Wood Group said it is focusing on growing its engineering, production facilities support and gas turbine services businesses following the acquisition of PSN and the disposal of its Well Support division. To facilitate engineering growth, the Engineering division is being restructured into two market-facing groups: Subsea/Pipeline/Riser & Integrity Management and Process & Facilities.

In a deal that will have enormous ramifications for the pipeline industry, Kinder Morgan, Inc. has announced plans to buy El Paso Corp. for $38 billion. If it goes through, the deal will create the largest midstream energy enterprise company as well as:

Asbestos coating on pipelines is not a popular topic with most pipeline companies. In fact they don’t even like to use the “A” word when describing the coating. Asbestos is a proven, effective, and durable means of protecting steel pipe from corrosion and the elements. For the most part, asbestos might be up to 50% percent of the felt wrapping around a length of line pipe with some tar type outer wrapping. Overall, this might mean there is as much as 25% asbestos in the complete coating.

Getting the lowest possible bid prices from contractors - consistent with safety and quality - is the goal of every utility, pipeline or other infrastructure owner. But how can the client ensure that the contractor provides the most comprehensive, lowest pricing for timely, quality work?

A new technology for the external rehabilitation of pipelines known as Xhab® has been developed by Pipestream Inc. This technology involves wrapping multiple layers of ultra-high strength steel (UHSS) strip in a helical form continuously over an extended length of pipeline using a dedicated forming and wrapping machine.

There are few Washington insiders who know more about energy legislation that Martin Edwards, Vice President of Legislative Affairs for the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA).

Plains Midstream Canada selected Specialized Services Company (SSC) to install sleeves at three locations to accommodate a new line being added to the underground infrastructure used to load and unload LPG from tankers and railcars at the Bumstead facility, an underground LPG storage cavern located along the Interstate 10 corridor between Phoenix and Los Angeles.

Construction of the $160 million Gibraltar-Bucaramanga gas pipeline in Colombia was recently completed. Gas Natural E.S.P. entered into an agreement with TransOriente E.S.P. for construction of the Gibraltar-Bucaramanga gas pipeline that will transport gas from the Gibraltar field to Bucaramanga Refinery where it will connect with Colombia’s national gas transport system.

A UK gas utility has implemented a remote CP monitoring system to help it improve pipeline protection and workforce efficiency. Wales & West Utilities (WWU) is an independent gas distribution business in the UK. It owns, operates, maintains and develops the gas network throughout Wales and southwest England, serving 7.5 million people. Its total length of pipeline network is 35,000 km.

An experienced gas utility field distribution crew struggled with frozen ground and sub-freezing January temperatures in northern Idaho a few years ago. They were seeking to pinpoint and resolve a natural gas leak in a rural corner of Avista Utilities’ three-state service area. Avista is based in Spokane, WA. The search for the leak was routine, at best, for the crew, but time-consuming.

With care taken in the welding process, more efficient power-generating system can be operated today with minimum down time for repairs and maintenance. This is due to the development of alloys and knowledge of their performance and behaviors in varying stress and temperature ranges.

If the North American shale gas boom is a decades-long game-changer as many pundits predict, natural gas pipelines need to stay tuned and the same can be said for the storage operations that have grown up along many of those pipelines. In the West the situation seems ripe for redefinition and reconfiguration of the storage landscape.

Natural gas’ midstream business is seeing a new direction and growth as natural gas from shale reservoirs continues to grow and expand. Usually in the gas business, midstream activities are seen as a part of the downstream – the marketing, distribution and consumption – ends of the business. Now, with so much activity in the areas of gathering, storage, treating and processing, and pipelines at the intra and interstate levels for natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGLs), it is coming into its own.

Two House Democrats introduced legislation Oct. 14 targeted at the practice of excessively burning natural gas emanating from wells drilled for crude oil. A release on the topic of the legislation characterized the practice as "becoming increasingly prevalent in places like North Dakota, as recently reported in the <em>New York Times</em>, but could become more widespread without intervention."

The pipeline safety recommendations issued by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Aug. 30 puts significant pressure on Congress and the Obama administration to respond to problems discovered as part of the NTSB investigation of the PG&E San Bruno explosion in September 2010.

After the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010, a philanthropist and nonprofit organization joined forces to introduce a contest to improve ocean water oil spill cleanup techniques. On Oct. 11 the winners were awarded their prizes: the first prize recipients earned a $1 million purse for technology that in tests was able to recover oil from the sea surface at a rate of 4670 gallons per minute and 89% efficiency, almost twice the rate targeted by the contest's organizers and three times the highest rate previously achieved under controlled conditions.

The Environmental Protection Agency has released the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, an addendum to the Clean Air Act, with the goal of reducing sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from power plants.

Following hot on the heels of the announcement that Kinder Morgan Energy Partners had agreed to acquire El Paso Corporation, KMP announced Oct. 24 that it has signed a definitive purchase and sale agreement to acquire SouthTex Treaters, a manufacturer, designer and fabricator of natural gas treating plants that remove CO2 and H2S, for approximately $155 million.

The Department of Energy reports natural gas production in the Northeast has grown rapidly since early 2009 as a result of increased drilling activity in the Marcellus Shale.

A group of 13 senators and representatives of U.S. Congress requested a delay Oct. 26 in the national interest decision needed from the U.S. State Department over the Keystone XL pipeline--the controversial 1,661-mile tar sands pipeline TransCanada wants to build in stages from Hardisty, Alberta to Houston and Port Arthur in the Gulf Coast region--saying TransCanada may have improperly influenced the state department's selection of the company that performed the environmental impact survey.

The rapid growth of Canada's oil sands is expected to dramatically increase its consumption of natural gas over the coming decade, a prospect that stands to help Alberta's gas industry but raise the country's emissions.

U.S. oil and natural gas policy changes could generate more than 1.4 million new jobs, $800 billion in additional government revenue, and 10 million barrels worth of added daily oil and natural gas production by 2030, according to a study by Wood Mackenzie released Sept. 7 by API. New jobs could be added in every state.

The Department of Energy announced a statement of policy adopting full-fuel-cycle (FFC) measures of energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) and other emissions in the national impact analyses and environmental assessments in its Energy Conservation Standards Program.

The Marcellus Shale contains about 84 Tcf of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas and 3.4 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas liquids according to a new assessment by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).  These gas estimates are significantly more than the last USGS assessment of the Marcellus Shale in the Appalachian Basin in 2002, which estimated a mean of about 2 Tcf and 0.01 billion barrels of natural gas liquids.

Alliance Pipeline L.P. announced an open season to identify further shipper demand for natural gas transportation service originating on its proposed 77-mile Tioga Lateral Project pipeline in North Dakota for delivery to the Chicago market hub.

Boardwalk Pipeline Partners announced Oct. 17 that it has agreed to acquire Petal Gas Storage, L.L.C. and Hattiesburg Gas Storage Company and related entities from Enterprise Products Partners L.P. for $550 million in cash (subject to customary adjustments).

BP has proposed an alternative pipeline project to feed Europe with Caspian natural gas. The project, South East Europe Pipeline, would link Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz gas field to a hub in Austria running from western Turkey across Bulgaria and Romania to Hungary's border.

Enogex has agreed to acquire a 60-mile natural gas gathering system and another 30-mile system from Oxbow Midstream that are both located in the Texas-Oklahoma Granite Wash area.

Enterprise Products Partners L.P. and Enbridge Inc. announced plans to construct and operate a pipeline to transport crude oil from the oversupplied hub at Cushing, OK to the Texas Gulf Coast refining complex.

As London prepares for the Olympics, facilities have been designed and constructed to be as energy efficient as possible. As an example, the Olympic Stadium’s roof truss was made out of unwanted gas pipelines.

High Point Gas Transmission, a partnership between an affiliate of ArcLight Capital Partners, LLC and High Point Energy LLC, has entered into a purchase and sale agreement with Southern Natural Gas Company to acquire certain natural gas pipeline assets located in SNG's supply area south of the Toca compressor station on its east leg in Louisiana.

Inergy, L.P.’s wholly owned subsidiary, Inergy Midstream, LLC, held a nonbinding open season for shippers wanting to transport incremental natural gas volume on the existing Stagecoach North and South laterals and to a new pipeline interconnect with Dominion Transmission.

North Korean leader Kim Jung Il met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to discuss several issues including a proposed pipeline that would stretch 1,100 km, including a 700-km segment in North Korea, the Kremlin said. Medvedev said Russia could supply 10 Bcm of gas a year.

Kinder Morgan, Inc. and El Paso Corporation announced Oct. 16 a definitive agreement whereby KMI will acquire all of the outstanding shares of EP in a transaction that will create the largest midstream and the fourth largest energy company in North America with an enterprise value of approximately $94 billion and 80,000 miles of pipelines.

Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, the Tampa Port Authority (TPA) and CSX Corp. have formed a public-private partnership to bring ethanol into the Tampa market more efficiently and safely via the nation’s first ethanol unit train-to-pipeline distribution system.

The partnership between Rosneft and ExxonMobil to explore and develop Russia's Arctic Basin has been met with some skepticism – understandably given some of the experience of western oil majors in Russia. But the deal is potentially of major significance for the Russian investment environment.

Petrobras Gás S.A. (Gaspetro) completed acquisition of Gas Brasiliano Distribuidora (GBD), a natural gas distribution utility operating in the northwestern region of the state of São Paulo for $271 million. Previously, the utility was controlled by Italy's ENI International B.V.

Cameron has renewed an agreement with Petrobras for the supply of aftermarket services and support for their developments offshore Brazil. The agreement is a continuation to the CAMSERV™ aftermarket services contract previously signed in 2007 and is expected to generate more than $150 million in revenue to Cameron over the next three years.

Questar Pipeline Company is holding a non-binding open season that runs through Oct. 31 to determine market interest in 8 Bcf of additional firm storage inventory at its Clay Basin Storage Reservoir as well as connecting Clay Basin directly to the Overthrust Pipeline Company and other pipelines near Kanda, WY.

Precision Pipeline is constructing the 41.5-mile, 24-inch Sunrise pipeline and 2.7 miles of 6-inch pipeline from Wetzel County, WV to Greene County PA, as well as a new compressor station near Jefferson in Greene County for Equitrans L.P.

In the past several years, few have doubted the growing importance of natural gas in the global supply picture. In this Q&A, Bill Colton, vice president, Corporate Strategic Planning, discusses the company’s global energy outlook through 2030, and the critical role that natural gas will play in meeting energy needs.

Puradyn Filter Technologies says its bypass oil filtration system keeps engine and hydraulic oil continuously clean by trapping solid contaminants down to below one micron and removing liquid and gaseous waste.

Kongsberg Maritime completed the world’s longest, multi-sensor autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) pipeline survey using one of its cutting-edge HUGIN 1000 AUVs. The inspection took place in February in the Hjelte fjord near Bergen, Norway. The HUGIN 1000 was operated from the Royal Norwegian Navy vessel HNoMS Måløy .

UE’s TX200H pressure transmitter allows users to easily upgrade to a HART 7 device using existing wiring.