Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP (KMP) has completed the dropdown of 50% of El Paso Natural Gas Co. LLC (EPNG) and 50% of the former El Paso Midstream assets in Utah and South Texas from Kinder Morgan Inc. in a deal worth nearly $1.66 billion, including $560 million of proportional debt at EPNG. KMP now owns 100% of both EPNG and the midstream assets. The transaction closed on and is effective March 1. KMP purchased the assets at about eight times 2013 earnings. EPNG is a 10,200-mile pipeline with a design capacity of 5.6 Bcf/d. It transports gas from the San Juan, Permian and Anadarko basins to California, other western states, Texas and northern Mexico. The midstream assets include Altamont gathering, processing and treating assets in the Uinta Basin in Utah and the Camino Real gathering system in the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas.

Houston-based Swift Energy Co. said that as of 3:12 p.m. CST Thursday it had brought under control an outflow of water, oil and natural gas resulting from a marine vessel collision with a company-operated shut-in wellhead in the shallow waters of its Lake Washington field in Plaquemines Parish, LA. The collision happened the previous Tuesday evening. The company worked with the U.S. Coast Guard, Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinators Office, Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, Louisiana Department of Natural Resources and Plaquemines Parish to address the incident.

The U.S. Department of Energy has granted Liquefied Natural Gas Ltd.‘s Magnolia LNG LLC authorization to export up to 4 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from its proposed export terminal at the Port of Lake Charles in Louisiana. The Magnolia LNG Project comprises the proposed development of an 8 mtpa LNG project on 90-acre site in an established LNG shipping channel in the Lake Charles District (see Daily GPI, Dec. 20, 2012). The project is based on two 4 mtpa development phases. Progress is being made on the Magnolia LNG Project’s Federal Energy Regulatory Commission pre-filing, the company said, and talks with parties interested in tolling agreements at the facility are under way.

YRC Freight has signed an agreement with Clean Energy Fuels Corp. to buy four liquefied natural gas (LNG)-powered trucks to serve the Port of Long Beach, CA, and surrounding areas. The YRC Worldwide Inc. unit said the deal would be a pilot project, working to leverage Clean Energy’s existing LNG fueling infrastructure. The results are to be analyzed by the company maintenance, fuel and operations teams. YRC President Jeff Rogers said his company is “eager to test natural gas trucks,” and see how they perform within its network in Southern California.

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