Blue Dolphin Energy Co. said it will purchase the Nixon Crude Processing Facility from a privately held firm in a stock deal, the value of which was not disclosed. The facility has a processing capacity of 15,000 b/d along with storage capacity of 295,000 b/d, and is located in the Eagle Ford Shale at Nixon, TX, on 56 acres between Gonzales and Wilson counties. The plant is in the final phase of a refurbishment project and plans to restart operations during 4Q2011.

Union Pacific Corp. expects crude oil shipments from the Bakken Shale in North Dakota to refineries on the Gulf Coast to quadruple this year compared to 2010. The railroad said it moved about 4,400 carloads of crude oil from the Bakken in 2010 but forecasts that more than 16,000 carloads will be transported this year. Union Pacific said it moved 8.8 million carloads total in 2010.

The city council in Fort Worth, TX, is expected to approve a plan to create its own maps of natural gas pipelines running through the city. The city has received $25,000 in federal grants to make the maps, which could be available to the public in 18 months. The civil engineering firm Pachero Koch will lead the project using global positioning satellite technology. Despite the move, the state’s regulatory agency — the Texas Railroad Commission — is expected to continue making pipeline maps for the entire state.

Trunkline Gas Co., a subsidiary of Southern Union Co., announced that it has completed the first construction phase for isolating its 165-mile South Texas system and provide bidirectional flow for liquids-rich gas. Trunkline will also begin its 15-year agreement with DCP Midstream LLC, which integrates DCP’s six processing facilities and its South and Central Texas gathering systems with Trunkline’s South Texas system. DCP has more than 1 Bcf/d of gas processing and associated natural gas liquids fractionation capacity.