Houston Pipe Line Co. LP‘s (HPL) Border Crossing Project, which would facilitate export and import of natural gas between the United States and Mexico at a point in Hidalgo County, TX, has been authorized by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to be placed into service. The project consists of 703 feet of 24-inch diameter pipeline installed under the Rio Grande to reach the international border at the middle of the river, where they will connect to pipeline under Mexican jurisdiction and built by an HPL affiliate. Principle use for the natural gas transported through the Border Crossing Project facilities will be to fuel electric generation plants and supply potential industrial customers in northern Mexico. The order comes more than a year after FERC initially approved border-crossing facilities that are part of an HPL plan to ship gas between Texas and Mexico (see Daily GPI, March 20, 2014).

A unit of Enterprise Products Partners LP has awarded Willbros Group Inc. the contract for a planned 15.5-mile, 24-inch diameter ethane pipeline from Enterprise’s storage facility near Mont Belvieu, TX, to the company’s Morgan’s Point facility on Galveston Bay in Harris County, TX. The pipeline will be constructed in one segment and will have multiple drilled crossings, including the Houston Ship Channel. The project begins this month and is planned to be complete in November. The terminal at Enterprise’s Morgan’s Point facility is to have the capability to load fully refrigerated ethane at about 10,000 bbl/hour (see Daily GPI, Aug. 4, 2014).

Cheniere Energy‘s Corpus Christi Liquefaction LLC and Cheniere Corpus Christi Pipeline LP have filed at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for prefiling review of a proposed expansion of their liquefaction and export terminal in Corpus Christi, TX. The terminal is under construction, and the Stage 3 Project would add two liquefaction trains and a fourth liquefied natural gas storage tank (see Daily GPI, May 12). A pipeline to serve the facilities would be 22 miles long and 42 inches in diameter. It would run parallel to a 48-inch diameter pipeline previously approved by the Commission, according to the filing [PF15-26].

American Energy Appalachia Holdings LLC (AEA), an affiliate within Aubrey McClendon’s platform of U.S. onshore operators, is changing its name and plans to become fully independent by the end of the year. Ascent Resources LLC would remain headquartered in Oklahoma City and continue to be run by CEO Jeff Fisher, a McClendon protege who was on the executive team at Chesapeake Energy Corp. McClendon also would remain a major financial backer. Repositioning as Ascent “marks an extremely important day in the life of our company,” Fisher said. He pointed to AEU’s other news, an agreement to sell some Utica Shale leasehold to Gulfport Energy Corp. for $407 million (see related story). The assets weren’t scheduled for near-term development and are a “better fit” for Gulfport. McClendon, who was forced out at Chesapeake in 2013, led the formation of American Energy Partners LP (AEU) later that year and then expanded with other onshore affiliates, including for the Utica and Marcellus shales. American Energy-Utica LLC and American Energy-Marcellus LLC were merged earlier this year and became units of AEA (see Shale Daily, Jan. 5). Private equity shareholders in the Appalachia business included McClendon and frequent financiers The Energy & Minerals Group (EMG) and First Reserve. The primary equity owners in Ascent won’t change, AEU stated.