March 2013, Vol. 240, No. 3

Cameron has an agreement with CNPC to establish a joint venture for the manufacture of pipeline ball valves mainly for use by CNPC to support its plans to build pipeline across China in the coming decade.

Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, L.P. is buying Copano Energy, L.L.C. for $5 billion. Copano, a midstream natural gas company with operations primarily in Texas, Oklahoma and Wyoming, provides services to natural gas producers, including natural gas gathering, processing, treating and natural gas liquids fractionation.

Advertisers from the print edition of Pipeline & Gas Journal, March 2013, Vol. 240 no. 3.

Petrofac's engineering and consulting services business, in partnership with Doris Engineering, was awarded a project management contract by Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) for specialized technical assistance and supervision for construction, installation, commissioning, testing and start-up of deepwater subsea wells and infrastructure for the Lakach project in the Gulf of Mexico.

In a way, Mitt Romney was right. A corporation is people. Let’s take a pipe coating mill. Once that lovely pipe is buried, it is forgotten except to those who monitor it for wear. It’s the people who make that product you will remember. People like Mike Reeder.

Custody transfer measurement in the oil and gas business has been described many ways. It has been called, “An accuracy in measurement that both the buyers and sellers can agree upon” and “The best that can be achieved to meet the contract conditions.” But I prefer to call it, “The search for the truth.”

Corrosion is a widespread problem across many industries. Corrosion-related costs to the pipeline industry are estimated anywhere from $5.4 billion to $8.6 billion annually in a report by NACE and CC Technologies. These costs include failures, capital, and operations and maintenance.

Comprehensive land use planning gives local residents and interested stakeholders a chance to influence the management of future, anticipated community growth. But for pipeline owners, this planning process can carry other benefits and risks.

Establishing pipeline integrity requires identifying specific threats, understanding their relationship to the condition of the pipeline, and establishing what mitigative measures are appropriate to assure integrity. The pipeline industry has relied on many years of research and experience to develop a set of tools to perform qualitative analyses of pipeline integrity. With the implementation of the Integrity Management Program (IMP) by the Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration (PHMSA), the analysis methods and results must be defendable and documented.

It’s been well documented that internal corrosion in gas, liquid and multiphase transmission pipelines is a significant problem that has caused extensive damage to pipelines and operating facilities.

Every year it seems that change is the one constant we can be sure of in the natural gas business. As we continue forward with the Shale Gas Revolution, we are continuing to see opportunities develop that were little more than dreams just a few years ago.

This article describes the two different process applications and quality-control aspects of zinc for corrosion control. A question often faced by engineers and material procurement personnel concerns making a choice between hot-dip galvanized material and zinc-electroplated options. The process, properties and quality-control issues of the two are discussed here in simple terms. This article also references typical applicable ASTM specifications.

Pipeline corrosion has enormous financial and operational implications for gas suppliers and distributors. As a result, the question of how best to tackle corrosion is beset by both cost and technical issues. Businesses can achieve a great deal by implementing long-term corrosion- management strategies, but many are reluctant to spend money on projects that do not deliver an early return in investment.

Oil and gas pipelines play a critical role in delivering the energy resources needed to power communities around the world. In the United States alone, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), more than 2.5 million miles of pipelines — enough pipeline to circle the earth approximately 100 times — deliver oil and gas to homes and businesses.

The integrity of pipelines is a matter of serious concern for those within the oil and gas industry, and for those watching from the outside as well. All the attention is, of course, fully justified.

Work on the 485-mile Gulf Coast Project pipeline has already progressed past the halfway point on all three of its spreads with TransCanada expecting the 36-inch pipe to be in service by the end of the year.

George Mitchell, former head of Mitchell Energy and Development Corp., is renowned for pioneering drilling and completion technologies that allowed gas to be extracted from shale formations. The geologist and petroleum engineer, known as the father of the Barnett Shale, enabled viable production through the first successful application of horizontal drilling, microseismic imaging, and hydraulic fracturing applied to the Barnett Shale.

One issue still a hot topic for the Obama administration is whether to approve the second and final phase of the Keystone XL Pipeline. This will include another pipeline coming from Canada into the U.S. bringing another million barrels per day of tar sand crude oil also known as “diluted bitumen” to Gulf Coast refineries.

A Columbia Gas & Transmission Corp. pipeline leak in West Virginia in December has reignited the debate over installation of automatic shutoff valves (ASVs) and remote control valves (RCVs) as a means of quickly limiting the potentially disastrous effects of a pipeline explosion and subsequent fire. The fire in Sissonville destroyed three homes and closed a section of a major highway for 14 hours.

Battelle, the world’s leading independent research and development organization, expanded its position in the oil and gas industry by opening an office at 10777 Westheimer Road, Suite 1100, Houston, TX 77042 (713) 260-9640.

Castleton Commodities International LLC (CCI) has acquired through subsidiaries the Paradox Basin midstream assets of Patara Oil & Gas LLC.

In a story that has sent rumblings throughout the pipeline construction business, Otis Eastern Service has taken on financially troubled Chesapeake Energy for nonpayment of bills. In press interviews, Charlie Joyce, president of the Wellsville, NY-based company, said Cheaapeake, the independent natural gas producer which is the biggest driller in the Marcellus Shale, was slow, then slower in paying its bills.

Dominion East Ohio and the Council of Smaller Enterprises (COSE) have teamed up to offer free energy efficiency assessments (up to a $6,000 value) to qualifying Dominion customers who own or lease a nonresidential building.

Natural gas utilities increased their investment in natural gas efficiency programs to nearly $958 million in 2011, according to a report from the American Gas Association (AGA).

Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. was selected by Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) to provide project management services for the Pipeline Safety Enhancement Program.

Government investigators found that a decades-old pipe that leaked and caused a fire at a Chevron refinery in California was corroded, and the company knew it should have been replaced.

UGI Corp. and Tenaska Resources LLC will jointly develop gas resources in the Marcellus Shale in north-central Pennsylvania.

The heads of Bulgaria and Serbia signed an agreement to put in place the first gas pipeline between Bulgaria and Serbia. The Nis-Dimitrovgrad-Sofia pipeline will contribute is particularly important given that both of them were severely affected by the 2009 gas supply disruption.

Construction of China’s trans-Myanmar oil and gas pipelines could help ease strained trade relations. The 1,100-km Myanmar-China oil pipeline will take tran-shipped oil from the Middle East and a parallel gas pipeline carrying gas from fields on Myanmar’s continental shelf in the Bay of Bengal.

Jeffrey P. Beale, president of CH-IV International (CH-IV), said CH-IV International was named owner’s engineer to prepare the FEED for the expansion of Gaz Métro’s LNG production facility in Montreal. Gaz Métro is studying solutions for improving LNG availability in Quebec and eastern Canada, including expanding its Montreal liquefaction, storage and regasification (LSR) plant.

Williams has partnered with Cabot Oil & Gas and Piedmont Natural Gas, to develop a major transmission pipeline project to connect Appalachian natural gas supplies in northern Pennsylvania with major northeastern markets by 2015.

Enterprise Products Partners and Genesis Energy have executed crude oil transportation agreements with a consortium of six Gulf of Mexico producers which will provide the necessary support for construction of a crude oil gathering pipeline serving the Lucius development area in southern Keathley Canyon.

Rosneft and ExxonMobil have agreed to expand their cooperation under their 2011 Strategic Cooperation Agreement to include an additional 600,000 square kilometers (150 million acres) of exploration acreage in the Russian Arctic and potential participation by Rosneft (or its affiliate) in the Point Thomson project in Alaska. They will also conduct a joint study on a potential LNG project in the Russian Far East.

The governments of Greece, Italy and Albania cemented their full support for and commitment to the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) project by signing a tri-lateral intergovernmental agreement (IGA) in Rome.

Magnolia LNG plans to develop a $2.2 billion NGL production and export facility at the Port of Lake Charles in southwest Louisiana. The company expects to make a final investment decision to move forward with the project in late 2014 after it secures permits and completes financing.

Shell will extract unconventional gas in Ukraine in what will be its first big project with a large multinational company in the oil and gas sector with Chevron likely to follow suit.

Following FERC approval of a customer settlement, NiSource’s Columbia Gas Transmission outlined plans for a five-year comprehensive pipeline infrastructure investment plan.

Canada’s National Energy Board (NEB) recommended partial approval to the Governor in Council (GiC) for the Northwest Mainline Komie North Extension project submitted by NOVA Gas Transmission Ltd (NGTL).

The U.S. Department of Energy has granted Pangea LNG (North America) Holdings, LLC, long-term, multi-contract authorization to export LNG to free trade agreement (FTA) nations from its South Texas LNG Project in development on Corpus Christi Bay.

Royal Dutch Shell subsidiary, Shell US Gas & Power LLC, and Southern Liquefaction Company, LLC, a Kinder Morgan company and unit of El Paso Pipeline Partners, L.P., plan to form a limited liability company to develop a natural gas liquefaction plant in two phases at Southern LNG Company LLC’s existing Elba Island LNG Terminal near Savannah, GA.

Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) officials have started a pre-qualification process, inviting steel pipe producers to an expression of interest in preparation for construction of the long-planned 800-km Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP).

There is no free energy, even for energy companies. In recent years, energy costs for pipeline companies have become an issue of increasing importance to managers and executives alike.

Dow Oil, Gas & Mining and Pipeline Induction Heat Ltd (PIH) (part of the CRC Evans group of companies) report a simple and robust field joint coating process for DOW NEPTUNE™ F Advanced Subsea Flow Assurance Insulation.