November 2012, Vol. 239 No. 11

Advertisers from the print edition of <em>Pipeline & Gas Journal</em>, November 2012, Vol. 239 No. 11.

Cheap and abundant, cleaner power generation, new jobs, profitable refineries, returning petrochem plants, the good news about natural gas just keeps on coming, or does it?

Alaska North Slope producers are considering building one of the world's largest and most expensive liquefied natural gas projects, according to a letter the companies sent last month to Gov. Sean Parnell.

For more than 80 years Battelle Memorial Institute, based in Columbus, OH, has earned a worldwide reputation as leader in science and technology. The world’s largest not-for-profit research and development organization, with over 20,000 employees at more than 100 locations globally, was established as a charitable trust in 1929 by industrialist-turned-researcher Gordon Battelle, who felt that business and scientific interests could benefit social good by working together.

The induction bending process for large-diameter pipes is very popular technology. An important problem in the bending process is prediction and improvement of the bending quality. In this article, a thermo-elastic-plastic mechanical model is used to simulate induction bending of large-diameter pipes. The bending experiments of the API 5L X65 induction bend pipes were performed to clarify the deformation behavior of the pipes. The large deformation behaviors of these experiments were simulated by finite element method, using ADINA software.

Industrial Control Systems (ICS) - such as supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems - manage and monitor critical storage, refining and distribution operations at many energy pipeline companies. These systems collect data from points throughout the operation and communicate control commands to equipment located both locally and remotely.

Deepwater Gulf of Mexico (GoM) is experiencing a strong resurgence of exploration and production activity and is well on its way toward reaching a “new equilibrium” in 2013 according to Wood Mackenzie’s latest upstream outlook.

America’s policymakers need to consider whether energy independence is really necessary to achieve adequate, reliable and affordable energy supplies, according to a new report from Deloitte.

ExxonMobil plans to invest approximately $185 billion over the next five years to develop new supplies of energy to meet expected growth in demand, Chairman and CEO Rex W. Tillerson said recently in a presentation at the New York Stock Exchange.

As natural gas prices in the United States approach their lowest point in a decade, several companies are in the early stages of developing liquefaction terminals to facilitate LNG exports.[1] Capacity at or output from these facilities is being snapped up by customers and buyers long before the facilities themselves are completed.

The American Gas Association (AGA) announced on Oct. 10 the election of Ronald W. Jibson as chairman of the Board of Directors for 2013. Jibson is chairman, president and CEO of Questar Corp. and was elected alongside several other officers during AGA’s Annual Corporate Meeting in Boston.

Governmental bodies are paying particular attention to seam welded pipes because several prominent releases, including the PG&E San Bruno, CA explosion, occurred at longitudinal seams.

<em>Pipeline & Gas Journal</em>’s 32nd Annual 500 Report provides the industry’s most detailed statistical listings of the nation’s energy pipeline system. As in past years, this report ranks the top distribution, liquids and gas transmission companies. Gas transmission companies are ranked by total miles of pipe while liquids pipeline companies are ranked by yearly crude deliveries. Distribution rankings are based on the number of gas customers.

Control room functions at natural gas and oil companies are drawing unprecedented attention from industry officials and regulators alike. The complex applications that call for human attention are multiplying, raising the bar on operator candidate minimum capabilities requirements. The human-machine interfaces are getting smaller and smarter. The challenge is for operators to grow in their jobs, efficiently handling the burgeoning information flow.

The need for good quality measurement has increased dramatically in recent years. Deregulation of market pricing structures, open access markets, increased exploration and drilling costs, fierce competition and new regulatory requirements have all influenced today’s approach to quality measurement methodologies. In fact, the terminology has evolved from “gas volume measurement” to “total energy measurement.” Today, not only is the volume of gas a consideration, but also the quantity of energy the gas produces. The gas industry has evolved from the MMcf to the MMBtu.

The fourth annual Tulsa Pipeline Expo (TPE) was held in September, attracting nearly 2,000 attendees. Event coordinators say they are already looking forward to number five. More than 150 exhibitors from across the state converged in Tulsa to display their wares and network with others in the energy industry.

Pipeline groups are unhappy with the way the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) is interpreting the new penalty authority Congress provided it under the Pipeline Safety, Regulatory Certainty, and Job Creation Act of 2011, which went into effect in January.

The Composite Repair Users Group met for its 2nd Annual Conference and Exhibition on Sept. 7 in Houston. The one-day conference, which was free to attend, focused on the permitting status of composite repair techniques for pipelines, updating members on new advances, demonstrating methods and results from testing and discussing the state of the industry.

Enbridge is considering options to expand its crude pipeline capacity in the Bakken region in addition to company projects already proposed and under way, shippers said last month. According to Platts, shippers said Enbridge presented the potential options at a meeting in Denver Jan. 10.

Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. and Sunoco, Inc. announced Oct. 5 completion of the merger of a wholly owned subsidiary of ETP, with and into Sunoco, with Sunoco surviving the merger as a subsidiary of ETP.

Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, L.P. announced Nov. 1 that its New York Harbor terminals, shut down due to Hurricane Sandy and still without electric power, are expected to be ready to begin inbound and outbound petroleum product movements at Carteret, N.J., Perth Amboy, N.J., and Staten Island, N.Y., within the next 24 to 48 hours.

Marathon Petroleum Corp. will buy BP’s Texas City refinery, one of the largest and most complex in the U.S., in a deal that could reach $2.5 billion. The refinery was the scene in 2005 of a fatal fire and explosion.

Caballo Energy is building a cryogenic processing plant to serve expanding natural gas production in the liquids-rich Mississippi Lime and Cana Woodford Shale plays.

Government officials report the Utica Shale formation holds about 38 Tcf of recoverable natural gas. In its first assessment the U.S. Geological Survey said it estimates the formation holds about 940 million barrels of oil and 9 million barrels of natural gas liquids.

Northeast Utilities subsidiaries NSTAR Gas and Yankee Gas earned the top two rankings in customer satisfaction among residential natural gas customers in the eastern U.S., reports to J.D. Power & Associates.

The Environmental Protection Agency told Enbridge Inc. on Oct. 3 that its 2010 oil spill in the Kalamazoo River system requires more cleanup.

Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy is establishing a new Center for Energy Studies (CES) to expand the institute’s energy research and policy programs.

Summit Midstream Partners, LLC has entered into an agreement with La Grange Acquisition, L.P., a wholly owned subsidiary of Energy Transfer Partners, L.P., to acquire ETC Canyon Pipeline, LLC for $207 million.

TMK IPSCO, the North American division of global pipe manufacturer OAO TMK, hosted an open house Oct. 1 at its new Research & Development Center at 10120 Houston Oaks Drive. Visitors toured several areas including the scanning electron microscope (SEM) lab, areas housing mechanical and collapse testing equipment, the corrosion lab and a section featuring connection load testers.

With a green light from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Alliance Pipeline is moving ahead with construction preparations for its Tioga Lateral Pipeline project in North Dakota.

Rigzone reports landowners attended an informal meeting in Cobleskill, NY to protest the planned construction of the Constitution Pipeline by Constitution Pipeline Company LLC, a joint venture between Williams Partners and Cabot Oil & Gas. On hand were officials from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Pipelines International reports that the Colorado Bureau of Land Management approved a 95-mile NGL pipeline which will stretch between western Colorado and eastern Utah.

Bridger Logistics, LLC, a division of Bridger Group, LLC, plans to join Advantage Pipeline, LLC of Midland, TX in developing its Pecos River Pipeline project that will transport oil from the Delaware Basin to Gulf Coast and Midland markets.

The CX-15 buoyant tower designed by Horton Shallow Water Development (SWD) has been successfully set as planned for BPZ Energy off the coast of Peru.

Inergy Midstream, L.P., UGI Energy Services, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of UGI Corporation and Capitol Energy Ventures Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of WGL Holdings, Inc., said UGI Energy Services, Inc. and Capitol Energy Ventures Corp. have executed binding precedent agreements for firm transportation capacity on Commonwealth Pipeline. These anchor shippers have agreed to buy firm transportation capacity on the Commonwealth Pipeline for a 10-year period at negotiated rates.

Eagle Rock Energy Partners, L.P. has closed on the acquisition of BP America Production Company's Sunray and Hemphill processing plants and associated 2,500 mile gathering system serving the liquids-rich Texas Panhandle for $227.5 million.

Canada’s Energy Resources Conservation Board approved Enbridge Inc.’s applications to build and operate two pump stations and the Woodland Pipeline Extension Project to bring additional crude oil transportation capacity into the Edmonton area by 2014. This capacity is needed to meet forecasts of regional oil sands volume targeted for delivery into the Edmonton hub.

Enterprise Products Partners L.P. announced the start-up of the second 300 MMcf/d train at the partnership’s Yoakum cryogenic natural gas processing plant in Lavaca County, TX.

Rosneft and ExxonMobil has selected Vostochniy Offshore Structures Construction Yard to conduct a concept evaluation and feasibility study for a platform capable of safely exploring Kara Sea’s shallow waters.

Estimated Iraqi oil production surpassed 3 million bpd in July, the highest level since the end of the Gulf War in 1990. Increased investment in Iraq's petroleum industry and export infrastructure underpin these production gains. However, many factors still constrain the Iraqi oil industry from reaching its full production potential.

Jordan and Iraq have agreed to construct a pipeline to supply Jordan with crude oil and natural gas.

Omnisens supplied fiber optic monitoring for ground movement, pipeline deformation and temperature measurement along the Sakhalin-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok pipeline, owned and operated by Gazprom.

Mexican state-owned oil company Pemex reported Sept. 19 that at least 26 workers were killed and a number of others injured in a fire at a natural gas reception facility in the northern state of Tamaulipas.

Ryckman Creek Resources, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Peregrine Midstream Partners LLC, held a non-binding open season for prospective customers interested in contracting for up to 8 Bcf of firm, high-deliverability, multi-cycle (HDMC) gas storage capacity beginning April 1, 2013 at the company’s new gas storage facility in Uinta County WY near the Opal Hub.

Wood Group Kenny company MSi Kenny was awarded a contract by Gazprom Avtomatizatsiya to provide a modeling subsystem for the Portovaya compressor station on the Russian coast of the Baltic Sea.

Enterprise Products Partners L.P., Anadarko Petroleum Corporation and DCP Midstream, have jointly agreed to design and construct a natural gas liquids pipeline that will originate in the Denver-Julesburg (DJ) Basin in Weld County, CO and extend 435 miles to Skellytown, TX in Carson County.

Turkey is revisiting the trans-Caspian gas pipeline project after a decade-long hiatus by aligning with the European Union, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan to back transportation of Turkmenistan gas to Turkey and onward to Europe.

The pick-up of drilling activity in offshore UK will continue, on the back of high oil prices and 2012 budget reforms supporting production and development, according to Research and Market’s "United Kingdom Oil and Gas Report Q3 2012.

White Cliffs Pipeline, a partially owned subsidiary of SemGroup Corp., is considering an expansion of capacity from Platteville, CO to Cushing, OK to facilitate increasing shipments of crude petroleum from the DJ Basin to the Cushing hub.

Williams has signed a long-term gas processing agreement with a producer in the Canadian oil sands.

This Thursday, Nov. 15, GE Industrial Solutions is presenting a webinar examining a new technology for inspecting unpiggable pipelines (more info and registration available <a href="https://oildom.webex.com/oildom/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=803320220">here</a>). To give us a taste of what's to come, P&GJ asked Robert Pechacek to answer a few quick questions.