Storage

Evacuation Ordered Near Chevron Gas Storage Fire

A fire that ignited in an underground natural gas storage area in the San Francisco Bay Area prompted the evacuation of thousands of residents, as Chevron emergency crews worked Thursday to purge gas from a pipeline and prevent an explosion, officials said.

Firefighters Sue SoCal Gas over Aliso Canyon Leak

Firefighters who worked in and around the site of a massive natural gas leak have sued Southern California Gas Co., alleging the utility knowingly let them be exposed to dangerous levels of toxic chemicals.

Open Season Launched for Plantation Pipeline Expansion

Kinder Morgan today started an binding open season to solicit commitments for the Roanoke Expansion project on the Plantation Pipe Line System.

Lotus Midstream to Acquire Centurion Pipeline

Crude oil logistics provider Lotus Midstream entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the Centurion pipeline system and a Southeast New Mexico crude oil gathering system from Occidental Petroleum. The transaction is expected to close later in the third quarter of 2018, subject to customary closing conditions.

SoCalGas: Aliso Canyon Leak Costs Exceed $1 Billion

SoCalGas raised the estimated cost for the massive leak at its 2015-2016 Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility in Los Angeles to $1.014 billion, warning the "estimate may rise significantly" due to pending lawsuits, possible fines and other costs.

Seaway Crude Pipeline Loads First VLCC at Texas Marine Terminal

Seaway Crude Pipeline, which owns a pipeline system that transports crude oil from Cushing to the Gulf Coast and a Gulf Coast distribution network, loaded its first very large crude carrier (VLCC) at the company’s marine terminal in Texas City.

Howard Energy Partners Completes Corpus Christi Liquids Terminal

Howard Energy Partners has commenced commercial operations at a new bulk liquid terminal facility in the Port of Corpus Christi.

‘New World Order’ Re-shaping Natural Gas Storage 

As the International Energy Agency (IEA) observed in June, dramatic changes are underway in the world’s natural gas trade. Thanks to shifting demand patterns, suppliers of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from producing countries such as the U.S. and Australia increasingly will need to look for new homes..

Quake Near Oklahoma Oil Hub Causes Substantial Damage

CUSHING, Okla. (AP) — A magnitude 5.0 earthquake centered near one of the world’s key oil hubs brought down building facades and shattered windows in a central Oklahoma city, rendering century-old buildings unsafe and raising concerns about key infrastructure. As the sun rose Monday, television new..

Martin Midstream to Sell Corpus Christi Terminal Assets

NuStar Logistics to acquire Martin Midstream's pipeline assets in Corpus Christi.

EQT Midstream Acquires Transmission, Storage and Gathering Assets

EQT Midstream Partners acquired the Allegheny Valley Connector (AVC) transmission and storage system, along with several Marcellus gathering systems from EQT Corporation for $275 million in cash, effective Oct. 1. The assets include 209 miles of transmission pipeline and 11 Bcf of working gas storag..

The Downstream Frontline for Integrity Management

Recent news headlines around gas storage incidents highlight the fact that it is not only oil and gas-producing wells that need continuous real-time integrity monitoring to avoid catastrophic leaks. According to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) most recent forecasts, we can expect a sustaine..

Husky Energy to Portion off Midstream Assets for $1.7 Billion

Husky Energy will sell 65% ownership interest in select midstream assets in the Lloydminster region of Alberta and Saskatchewan to Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings and Power Assets Holdings Limited (PAH). Husky, which will remain the operator, will receive $1.7 billion of gross cash proceeds, whi..

Mountaineer NGL Storage Open Season Underway

On April 11, 2016, Mountaineer NGL Storage, LLC began its non-binding open season for up to 1.6 million barrels of initial storage capacity with more than 25,000 bbls per day of load-in and load-out. The Mountaineer NGL Storage Project will provide storage services to a growing number of gas proces..

Bayou Bridge Pipeline Begins Nederland-Lake Charles Operations

Bayou Bridge Pipeline started commercial operations on the 30-inch segment of the Bayou Bridge Pipeline from Nederland, TX, to Lake Charles, LA. The project is owned by subsidiaries of Phillips 66 Partners, Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco Logistics Partners. In addition, as a result of successf..

Floridian Natural Gas Storage Announces Non-Binding Open Season for Firm Gas Storage Service

Floridian Natural Gas Storage Company, LLC (FGS) is soliciting non-binding bid proposals from interested parties for a firm liquefaction, storage, and redelivery by vaporization service to a new delivery point through an interconnect with Florida Gas Transmission Company (FGT) at a location at or ne..

U.S. Natural Gas Production Reaches Record High in 2015

U.S. natural gas production reached a record high level of 79 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in 2015, an increase of 5% from the previous year, even as natural gas prices remained relatively low. Production from five states—Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Oklahoma, and North Dakota—was respon..

Natural Gas Storage Ends Winter Heating Season at Record High

Working natural gas inventories ended the winter heating season at 2,478 billion cubic feet (Bcf), exceeding the previous end-of-March record high of 2,473 Bcf, set in 2012, according to EIA’s Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report. Inventory withdrawals during the traditional heating season (November th..

Oil Majors Only Replace 75% of Oil and Gas Produced in 2015

The oil majors failed to replace all of the oil and gas reserves that they burned through in 2015, a worrying sign for the industry’s future. The Wall Street Journal reported that the seven largest oil and gas companies only replaced about 75 percent of the reserves on average that they produced la..

High Production, Low Prices Mean Little Change in Natural Gas Storage Capacity

High levels of natural gas production and relatively low natural gas prices are affecting markets for seasonal natural gas storage, including the value of additional storage capacity. For the second year in a row, no new natural gas storage facilities were added, and the slight changes, both positiv..

Ultrasonic Metering, Creative Insulation Engineering, Aid LNG Plant

A major East Coast storage facility for liquefied natural gas (LNG) had a flow metering challenge on one line.  The problem was directly related to the temperature of the product. LNG is liquefied to concentrate its volume for shipping and, as a result, the temperature of the liquid drops to a cryog..

Storage Site Leak Raises Environmental, Reliability Concerns

Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) detected a major leak Oct. 23 at Aliso Canyon, an underground natural gas storage facility located 30 miles northwest of Los Angeles. The Aliso Canyon storage facility, which has 115 wells, is the second-largest natural gas storage field in the western Unit..

Henry Hub, Marcellus Spread Narrows as Pipeline Capacity Grows

Natural gas spot prices around the United States are often compared to prices at the Henry Hub in Louisiana. At trading points in and around the Marcellus and Utica shale plays in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio, natural gas prices consistently trade below the Henry Hub national benchmark pric..

OPEC Says $95 Oil Coming, But Not Until 2040

This week opened with the average global price of oil at an 11-year low, yet OPEC expects its own producers eventually will cut back on production, causing prices to rebound to $70 per barrel by 2020. That may seem a long time for producers to wait for oil to become more profitable, but in OPEC’s annual World Oil Outlook, issued Wednesday, the oil cartel does not see oil prices returning to the heights of $110 per barrel, where it was before the price crisis began in June 2014. Instead, it says it doesn’t expect prices to reach even $95 per barrel until 2040.

Oil Jobs Drive North Dakota to Lead US in Population Growth Again

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — North Dakota is once again leading the nation in population growth, and the number of residents in the state is at an all-time high, according to figures released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. The bureau's most recent estimate put the state population at 756,927 in July, an increase of 16,887 residents — or about 2.3% — compared to July 2014. That percentage, far higher than the national average, is largely driven by people in search of jobs in oil-rich western North Dakota.

Columbia Pipelines Looking to Spend $1.1 Billion on Modernization

Columbia Gas Transmission has filed a customer agreement with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to extend its long-term system modernization program by three years, through 2020.The agreement, with a requested approval by March 31, would provide for $1.1 billion of additional investment. Parent company Columbia Pipeline Gas (CPG), has invested about $1 billion under the modernization programs over the past three years, placing more than 100 projections into service. These include: • Replacement of more than 130 miles of bare steel pipelines and wrought iron facilities

AP Investigation: US Power Grid Vulnerable to Foreign Hacks

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Security researcher Brian Wallace was on the trail of hackers who had snatched a California university's housing files when he stumbled into a larger nightmare: Cyber-attackers had opened a pathway into the networks running the United States power grid.

Crestwood Equity Completes Open Season on Pipeline Expansion

Crestwood Equity Partners completed a non-binding open season on Dec. 7 seeking shipper support for the Delaware Takeaway crude pipeline system (Delta), a 164-mile crude and condensate pipeline header system originating at a Crestwood terminal to be built north of Pecos, TX. The pipeline would have potential downstream connections to multiple downstream interconnects that will provide shippers access to end markets including El Paso, Midland, Cushing, Houston and Corpus Christi.

Dont Expect Crude Exodus Because Export Ban Ending

Congress is on the verge of passing a major budget deal that includes some of the largest changes to energy policy in some years. Tucked into the budget bill is a repeal on the ban on crude oil exports from the United States, a highly sought after goal on behalf of the oil and gas industry. In exchange for lifting the export ban, Republicans agreed to extend tax credits for wind and solar for five years.

Mexico Oil Sector Sees Most Successful Auction So Far

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico's third auction to open oil and gas blocks to private investment was the most successful yet, with all 25 blocks drawing bids Tuesday. Officials awarded exploration and production rights to mostly Mexican companies, as well as one Canadian firm plus consortiums involving U.S. and Dutch investments. No major multinational oil companies participated in the bidding.