April 2010 Vol. 237 No. 4

Advertisers from the print edition of Pipeline & Gas Journal, April 2010, Vol. 237 No. 4.

Veteran energy journalist <strong>Daniel Whitten</strong> <strong><strong></strong></strong>has joined the America’s Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA) as vice president of Strategic Communications. Whitten will help lead the association’s efforts to promote the environmental, economic and national security benefits of clean, abundant and North American natural gas.

International welding group Serimax has been acquired by Vallourec, world leader in premium tubular solutions, in a €150 million ($198 million) deal announced April 28.

Unless something truly groundbreaking happens, this is going to be the last time I talk about what would have been the Mackenzie Valley pipeline. I won’t bother rehashing all of the details because they really won’t mean anything anymore. For the record, the Mackenzie Valley pipeline was going to be about 750 miles and transport up to 1.5 Bcf/d of natural gas.

Russian gas giant Gazprom is expecting European gas demand to rebound this year, but is rethinking its ambitious gas export plans to the United States amid the ongoing shale gas "revolution" in that country.

An automatic, continuous engine pressure balancing system has been installed on a Cooper-Bessemer 10V-250 on the Williams Gas Pipeline (WGP) system. The autobalance system uses permanently installed pressure monitoring that provides pressure information to a continuous feedback control system.

“What are we going to do about casings?” became an oft-repeated phase for Baltimore Gas & Electric’s (BG&E’s) pipeline integrity team back in 2007. There were approximately 70 cased crossings identified on the company’s transmission pipe in HCAs regulated by the transmission integrity rule. Pipe inside of casing is covered by the rule, but cannot be indirectly inspected or directly examined.

The Energy Telecommunication and Electrical Association (ENTELEC), is an energy industry user group that focuses on communications and control technologies used by petroleum, natural gas, pipeline and electric utilities. In anticipation of this year’s ENTELEC 2010 Conference and Expo, scheduled April 13-15, 2010 at the George R. Brown Convention Center, a few of the group’s members recently sat down to discuss current issues affecting the industry.

With the aging of the workforce, the energy industry in the United States is facing the loss of the experienced and skilled resources that have developed, deployed and maintained the complex systems that underpin our energy infrastructure and the markets that operate within it.

The North American shale gas revolution is entering a new phase of activity with gas production in the “Big 7” shale gas plays: Antrim, Barnett, Devonian, Fayetteville, Woodford, Haynesville and Marcellus, now estimated to be on track to rise to between 27-39 Bcf/d over the next decade – with the Marcellus now singularly recognized as the largest unconventional natural gas reserve in the world.

Alternative sources of methane gas often get overlooked in America’s ongoing quest to relieve its dependence on finite fossil fuels and decrease its greenhouse gas emissions. However, what should not be overlooked is the reality that biogas can be a supplement to natural gas in this country’s natural gas transmission and distribution systems.

The Pipeline Inspection, Protection, Enforcement and Safety Act of 2006 (PIPES) mandates that the Secretary of Transportation issue regulations on control room management (CRM) requiring a human factors plan that assures control systems are matched to human capabilities and limitations, including fatigue management.(1)

The bubble of Baby Boomer retirements is here and, thankfully, LDCs have some new tools to prepare both new field employees and management replacements faster and less expensively - a big advantage with today’s LDC budget challenges.

On Aug. 28, 2005, the day before Hurricane Katrina hit, utility Entergy New Orleans served approximately 144,000 customers in the gas side of its electric and gas business. The hometown subsidiary of the Entergy Corporation had some difficulties with its 19th-century cast iron gas mains and mid-20th-century steel pipe. But the system worked, for the most part--until Katrina.

Over the past 15 years, natural gas ultrasonic meters have transitioned from the engineering lab to wide commercial use as the primary device of choice to measure gas volume for fiscal accounting. Wide acceptance and use by gas pipeline companies has occurred during this time due to the device’s many strengths:

Outsourcing of jobs. Plants moving offshore. U.S. industrial manufacturing has seen tough times in recent years - and natural gas has been part of that journey. The U.S. economy, however, remains undergirded by a highly productive and continually changing manufacturing sector.

The American Gas Association’s recently released analysis on the nation’s natural gas supply details the robust supply picture and quells any doubts about the ability of natural gas to supply the country well into the next century. The analysis, <em>U.S. Natural Gas Supply: Then There Was Abundance</em>, provides critical information on conventional and unconventional natural gas supply sources.

With the new year comes opportunities, but none greater than for the natural gas vehicle (NGV) market. 2010 may be the take-off year for NGVs in the U.S. From a base of 300 million gasoline gallon equivalent (GGE) in 2009, the use of natural gas in vehicles could grow to 10 billion GGE in 2020 or more. That’s 37 Bcf of natural gas in 2009 to 1,250 Bcf in 2020.

So I’m sitting at my desk, trying to figure out how to make Excel do what I want it to, but all I am getting is “#VALUE!.” What does that even mean? Then my phone rings. The call is from our construction supervisor, who is overseeing the repair digs on a recently completed 200-mile coating survey on a buried pipeline. He asks, can our survey method identify anomalies under concrete coating or swamp weights?

Congressional concern about "fracking" took another step forward when the chairman of the House Energy & Commerce Committee sent letters to eight companies asking for details on the chemicals they use during horizontal drilling of shale gas deposits.

<a href="http://pipelineandgasjournal.com/april-newsreel-study-questions-benefits-2005-energy-policy-act-shell-gets-cga-presidents-award-eqt-a?page=2#study">Storage Study Questions Benefits Of 2005 Energy Policy Act</a> <a href="http://pipelineandgasjournal.com/april-newsreel-study-questions-benefits-2005-energy-policy-act-shell-gets-cga-presidents-award-eqt-a?page=2#shell">Shell Pipeline Company Receives Common Ground Alliance President's Award</a>

Cardinal Pipeline Company LLC has executed precedent agreements to increase the pipeline's firm transportation capacity by 199,000 Dth/d.

Buckeye Partners, L.P. and NOVA Chemicals Corp. have signed a memorandum of understanding regarding the evaluation and development of a mixed NGL pipeline from the Marcellus Basin in Pennsylvania to the refining and petrochemical complex in the Sarnia-Lambton area in Ontario, Canada.

Construction is under way on Fayetteville Express Pipeline, L.L.C.’s Fayetteville Express Pipeline, a 50/50 joint venture between Energy Transfer Partners and Kinder Morgan Energy Partners.

TDW Offshore Services AS has completed an innovative low-pressure isolation operation on an export pipeline riser in the North Sea. The work results from a 2007 incident when a passing vessel collided with the southeast face of a satellite platform jacket, damaging the 12-inch export riser.

Denali - The Alaska Gas Pipeline filed its open season plan with FERC April 7th. The filing outlines the commercial terms, technical plans, estimated costs and projected rates for the project.

El Paso Corp’s wholly owned subsidiary, Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company (TGP), has executed binding, 20-year term agreements for 100% of the capacity for its Northeast Upgrade Project.

Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. announced an expansion of the planned Tiger Pipeline that will serve the Haynesville Shale producing region in Louisiana and East Texas.

ENSTOR conducted a non-binding open season in March for the 16 Bcf Phase I of its Houston Hub project under development 30 miles northeast of Houston.

GE Energy Financial Services announced March 31 that it is investing $150 million to acquire Houston-based investor Crest Group’s 30% interest in the fully contracted $1.1 billion Gulf LNG Energy terminal under construction in Mississippi.

The South Dakota Public Utilities Commission granted a permit with 50 conditions for construction of TransCanada’s Keystone XL Pipeline in western South Dakota. The conditions can be reviewed on the South Dakota PUC’s website.

Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations (ADCO) awarded a contract worth $US683 million to state-owned National Petroleum Construction Company (NPCC) for a 595-mile pipeline in the United Arab Emirates.

El Paso Corporation announced April 5 its Ruby Pipeline project has received full approval from FERC.

Subsea 7 Inc. repaired the Girassol Pipeline in the Girassol field, 210 km northwest of Luanda, Angola for Total E&P Angola last year. The project was a diverless operation in 1,350 meters of water. A design competition by Total resulted in Subsea 7 being awarded a contract for the design, manufacture, testing and operation of a deepwater pipeline repair system, which it then used to repair a 12-inch water-injection pipeline.

A unit of Williams Partners L.P. initiated a binding open season from March 4-26 for expansion of Transco pipeline to provide incremental firm natural gas transportation capacity to transport growing Pennsylvania Marcellus supply to New York and New Jersey markets.

Weatherford Pipeline & Specialty Services group was awarded a contract by Technip for pre-commissioning and commissioning services on the Jubilee field development off West Africa.

After its midstream business signed a long-term agreement with Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. for natural gas gathering in Pennsylvania, Williams Partners announced plans for an expansion in the Marcellus Shale.

Williston Basin Interstate Pipeline Company, the wholly owned natural gas transmission pipeline subsidiary of MDU Resources, plans to increase firm deliverability from its existing Baker storage facility in southeastern Montana.

In October 2009, Adriatic LNG placed the world’s first gravity–based LNG terminal into service. Adriatic LNG is a joint venture between Qatar Terminal Limited (45%), a 100%-owned Qatar Petroleum subsidiary, ExxonMobil Italiana Gas (45%) and Edison SpA (10%).

British Columbia-based Yalian Steel Corp.’s wholly owned subsidiary, Yangzhou Yalian Steel Pipe Co. Ltd., received approval for certification and license registration of 5L X-70 Grade pipe.

Scotland native Mark Guest is managing director of OilCareers, an international online job board for the oil and gas industry which recently opened its first office in North America in Houston. In an interview with P&GJ, Guest said OilCareers (www.oilcareers.com) plans to increase its user base of 640,000. The candidate base carries about 7,000 jobs listings per month, he said.

A new system for gas-free working on large-diameter, low-pressure natural gas mains using semi-supported flowstop bags was approved by National Grid Gas in the United Kingdom. The technique provides an easy-to-use and cost-effective alternative to squeeze-off on polyethylene (PE) mains and Iris Stop on metallic mains for maintenance, repair and modification of distribution networks while preserving continuity of supply.

The American Gas Association (AGA) has launched a public service announcement campaign on radio stations across the country April 22 in honor of Earth Day. The campaign encourages Americans to be more earth friendly – and save money – by improving their home’s energy efficiency.