Gulf South Pipeline Co. LP received a favorable environmental assessment for its St. Charles Parish Expansion Project in Louisiana, which would add a 5,000 hp compression station and 900 feet of 16-inch diameter pipeline [CP16-478]. The project would provide up to 0.13 Bcf/d of natural gas to an Entergy Louisiana LLC proposed natural gas-fired power plant in the parish by enabling pressure management between Gulf South’s existing 24-inch diameter Index 270 pipeline and its 16-inch diameter 270-94 lateral. Entergy broke ground for the 980 MW St. Charles Power Station earlier this year.

Ohio-based Marathon Petroleum Corp.‘s midstream master limited partnership (MLP), MPLX LP, closed a $220 million oil pipeline acquisition and separately received a $2 billion dropdown of oil terminal, pipeline and storage assets from Marathon. The newly acquired assets include 62 light-product terminals with approximately 24 million bbls of storage capacity, 11 pipeline systems totaling 604 miles, 73 tanks with about 7.8 million bbls of storage capacity, a crude oil truck unloading facility at Marathon’s Canton, OH, refinery, and eight natural gas liquids storage caverns with about 1.8 million bbls of capacity in Woodhaven, MI. Meanwhile, the pipeline purchase closure was for Enbridge Pipelines LLC‘s Ozark line, a 433-mile 22-inch diameter crude pipeline originating at the oil hub in Cushing, OK, and terminating in Wood River, IL. Ozark has a capacity of 230,000 b/d, which MPLX is planning to expand to 345,000 b/d by 2Q2018.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has launched an iPad application for electronic field inspections at oil and natural gas well sites. The app replaces clipboards and paper forms and will make the inspection process more accurate and efficient, according to DEP. The app allows agency staff to conduct better inspections of surface activities at oil and gas sites and improve data collection for erosion and sedimentation, waterways encroachment, waste management and spill cleanup. The number of field inspections that DEP staff can perform yearly will also increase. The agency is developing a similar app for its oil and gas subsurface inspectors. While the DEP has been working to update its technologies and processes for years, the new technology supports the Governor’s Office of Transformation, Innovation, Management and Efficiency, a collaborative initiative across state government aimed at modernizing operations, reducing costs and improving services.

Rosemead, CA-based Southern California Edison Co. (SCE) on Monday released a request for offers (RFO) seeking a variety of distributed energy resources in the Santa Barbara-Goleta area, including natural gas-fired options, such as combined heat-power and cogeneration along with storage, energy efficiency and distributed renewable resources. Eligible projects must meet local interconnection requirements and have start dates between June 1, 2019 and June 1, 2020. SCE seeks to bolster its grid resiliency in the coastal area about 100 miles northwest of Los Angeles. Utility officials said the RFO is not trying to add capacity, but rather increase grid resiliency by adding distributed resources. Projects that meet the RFO requirements will participate in a competitive bidding process for which a bidder’s conference will be held March 22. Additional information is at RFO website established by SCE, scegarfo.accionpower.com.

A natural gas pipeline in the Middle Ground Shoal area of Alaska’s Cook Inlet continues to leak, Operator Hilcorp Alaska LLC said Wednesday. The company, state and federal agencies are still working on a fix. Hilcorp continues to maintain a lowered operating pressure in the line to prevent water intrusion. The reduction in line pressure has reduced the release rate to approximately 229 Mcf/d, the company said. Hilcorp has been conducting air and water quality sampling and is working with the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation to implement a more comprehensive plan to monitor fish and wildlife, air and water quality, sound and ice conditions. To date, no significant impacts to wildlife or the environment have been observed, and the release does not pose a threat the general public, the company said. Once conditions allow, repair operations are expected to take several days.

The city of Presidio, TX, plans to construct a lateral from the Trans-Pecos Pipeline to deliver natural gas to a new industrial park. Trans-Pecos is under construction and nearing completion. The project has drawn protests from locals opposed to pipeline development in the region as well as out-of-state protesters. West Texas Gas Inc. has made a preliminary commitment to construct, own and operate a six-inch diameter, 11-mile lateral pipeline. Trans-Pecos Pipeline LLC, which is a joint venture owned in part by an affiliate of Energy Transfer Partners LP, will help offset lateral construction costs and provide a tap to access gas at the Trans-Pecos meter station near the Texas-Mexico border. The lateral will initially terminate at the industrial park and will supply gas to the Biad Chili plant currently under construction. “After the 1998 acquisition of our transmission pipeline system serving the Fort Davis community and surrounding greenhouses, along with the Cities of Balmorhea, Marfa and Alpine; West Texas Gas has searched for ways to serve the market along the Presidio-Ojinaga border,” said West Texas Gas President Richard Hatchett. The lateral is expected to be in service by June.

APV Renaissance Partners Opco LLC, a subsidiary of New Jersey-based American Power Ventures LLC, wants to redevelop a large coal-fired power plant that was closed in 2013 to burn natural gas. APV has announced a public hearing on April 5 to discuss its proposal. The company is reportedly planning to file a permit for the natural gas combined cycle facility with state regulators in the next month. FirstEnergy Corp. closed the 1,710 MW Hatfield’s Ferry power plant for financial reasons. APV’s proposal is the latest in a rush to build more gas-fired power plants throughout the PJM Interconnection market. In particular, cheap gas in the Appalachian Basin has prompted developers to make plans for dozens of new plants in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

MMEX Resources Corp. said it plans to build a $450 million, 50,000 b/d capacity crude oil refinery in the West Texas portion of the Permian Basin, at a site 20 miles northeast of Fort Stockton. The facility is to be built on a 250-acre site in Pecos County, near the Sulfur Junction spur of the Texas Pacifico Railroad using existing infrastructure to export diesel, gasoline, jet fuel, liquefied petroleum gas and crude oil to western Mexico and South America. Upon completion of the permitting process, construction is slated to begin in early 2018. MMEX added that the facility, which is projected to begin operations in 2019, is also subject to completion of required debt and equity financing.

Canyon Midstream Partners II LLC has begun constructing the Redcliff Plant, a natural gas processing facility in Woodward County, OK, and the Redcliff Gathering System in the state’s Woodward, Dewey, Blaine and Canadian counties. The system would serve producers in Oklahoma’s STACK (Sooner Trend of the Anadarko Basin, mostly in Canadian and Kingfisher counties). When completed in 1Q2018, the Redcliff Plant is expected to provide 200 MMcf/d of cryogenic processing capacity and access to residue gas markets on ANR and Southern Star Central. The Redcliff system would initially consist of 70 miles of 20-inch diameter trunkline, multiple field compression stations and low-pressure gathering pipelines to deliver gas from producer locations to the Redcliff Plant. The plant would be built to accommodate future expansions, which would bring the site’s total processing capacity to 400 MMcf/d.