Calgary-based Nexen Inc. is reviewing alternatives for its natural gas and power marketing businesses, which may include the sale of all or part of them. Nexen’s marketing business was the eighth largest North American gas marketer in the first quarter of this year, according to NGI‘s Top North American Gas Marketers survey. The firm transacted about 5.1 Bcf/d during the quarter. Earlier this year Nexen scaled back its marketing operations (see NGI, May 4; Feb. 16). The company said it has selected an adviser to assist with this initiative to continue the alignment of its marketing activities with its upstream oil and gas business. Nexen has operations in the North Sea, Western Canada (including the Athabasca oil sands of Alberta and unconventional gas resource plays such as shale gas and coalbed methane), the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, offshore West Africa and the Middle East.

Millennium Pipeline Co. is holding a nonbinding open season through Aug. 7 offering firm shippers unsubscribed firm forward-haul capacity to be available Nov. 1. Shippers may request firm service from any authorized mainline receipt point to any authorized mainline delivery point on the Millennium system. Millennium can directly or indirectly serve New York, New Jersey and New England. Western New York gas storage and production can be accessed directly through Millennium, and Canadian gas can be delivered through interconnections with Empire State Pipeline. Millennium serves markets in the Southern Tier and lower Hudson Valley as well as New York City through interconnections at Ramapo, NY. Information is available at www.millenniumpipeline.com or by contacting Stan Brownell at (845) 620-1300 or at brownell@millenniumpipeline.com.

Western Gas Partners LP completed the acquisition of midstream assets in the Uinta Basin in northeastern Utah from its largest customer and parent company, Anadarko Petroleum Corp., for an estimated $107 million. The acquisition includes a 51% interest in Chipeta Processing LLC, which owns the Chipeta natural gas processing complex in Utah. The complex entails two recently completed processing trains: a refrigeration unit completed in November 2007 with a design capacity of 240 MMcf/d and a 250 MMcf/d capacity cryogenic unit that was commissioned in April (see NGI, July 20). Chipeta provides processing services to Anadarko and third-party producers in the Greater Natural Buttes Field and has current throughput of 375 MMcf/d. With the closure of the transaction, Anadarko still retains a 24% stake in Chipeta. Anadarko spun off Western Gas in 2008 (see NGI, Jan. 5). The midstream assets acquisition will be financed primarily with debt.

Egan Hub Storage LLC has asked FERC for the green light to place a fourth cavern at its storage facility in Acadia Parish, LA, into service by Wednesday (July 29) with an interim capacity of approximately 5.5 Bcf. Egan Hub said it is building 16.5 miles of header pipeline this year and plans to construct the remaining 8.5 miles of the header pipeline in 2010. In October 2007 FERC issued a certificate to Egan Hub to build the fourth cavern with a capacity of 10.5 Bcf, nearly twice the capacity that it is seeking to place into service now (see Daily GPI, Oct. 19, 2007). The company did not indicate when it plans to add the remaining 5 Bcf of capacity. The project approved by FERC called for working gas capacity of 8 Bcf in the fourth storage cavern; an expansion of the capacity of Egan Hub’s Line 73 header system via the construction of the 16.5-mile. 24-inch diameter loop; a new meter and regulating (M&R) station to increase interconnect capacity with Texas Gas Transmission; an upgrade to the existing Texas Eastern Transmission (Tetco) M&R station; and associated interconnecting piping and other facilities. The expanded header line, which would begin at the Egan Hub facility and terminate at the Texas Gas M&R station, would allow Egan to receive and deliver gas to liquefied natural gas (LNG) takeaway pipelines in the region and to meet the increased demand for capacity at the Tetco and Texas Gas M&R stations, said Egan Hub, a subsidiary of Spectra Energy Corp. When completed, the Egan Hub storage site is expected to have an overall capacity of 42 Bcf, and its maximum daily withdrawal rate would increase to 2,700 MMcf/d from 2,500 MMcf/d.

FERC issued a favorable environmental assessment (EA) of Mississippi Hub LLC‘s proposal to expand the working gas capacity of its salt cavern storage facility that is under construction in south-central Mississippi. Mississippi Hub, a subsidiary of EnergySouth Inc., proposes to increase the total working gas capacity of the facility to 15 Bcf from the previously authorized 12 Bcf, expand withdrawal and injection capabilities and create new interconnects with the Southeast Supply Header (SESH) and Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line (Transco) systems (see NGI, Feb. 11, 2008). The storage company is seeking to increase the working gas capacity of each of the two salt storage caverns to 7.5 Bcf from 6 Bcf; modify the natural gas handling facility site, including installing 15,800 hp of additional compression; construct 22.6 miles of 30-inch diameter pipeline and 14.2 miles of 24-inch diameter pipeline in a single pipeline corridor; and install aboveground tie-in and metering facilities at proposed pipeline interconnects with SESH and Transco, according to the EA. The Mississippi Hub currently is under construction at the Bond Salt Dome in southeastern Mississippi. The storage facility is being developed in close proximity to several interstate pipelines and pipeline expansion projects. In January FERC granted Mississippi Hub a multi-year extension of the deadline to complete and place into service its previously authorized storage project. At the time the company told FERC it expected to complete construction of its first storage cavern during the first half of 2011, with remaining facilities to be finished and operable by early 2012. The agency gave Mississippi Hub until Feb. 15, 2012 to complete the project. Last year San Diego-based Sempra Energy acquired Mobile, AL-based EnergySouth, which has a 60% interest in Mississippi Hub (see NGI, Aug. 4, 2008).

FERC approved a request of Tres Palacios Gas Storage LLC, a subsidiary of Westport, CT-based NGS Investments LP, to place its entire storage header system in Texas in service. In its request, Tres Palacios said it was nearing completion of the construction of the segment of the header system between interconnections with Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line (Transco) and Tennessee Gas Pipeline (see NGI, July 20). With the completion of this segment, Tres Palacios said the entire header system would be done [CP07-90]. The 41.72-mile, looped bidirectional header pipeline will be connected to a number of interstate and intrastate pipelines besides Transco and Tennessee, including Florida Gas Transmission, Natural Gas Pipeline Co. of America, Kinder Morgan Tejas, Texas Eastern Transmission, Enterprise Texas, Houston Pipe Line and Enterprise Intrastate. In late 2008 and early this year Tres Palacios received authorization to place into service storage caverns one and two, as well as its gas handling facility and previously constructed portions of the header pipeline system (see NGI, Oct. 6. 2008). The storage facility in Matagorda County, TX, is using existing underground salt caverns on the Markham Dome. A third cavern is targeted for service in 2010, according to Tres Palacios. The three-cavern facility has planned working gas storage capacity of 36.62 Bcf, and will have the ability to receive injections of up to 1 Bcf/d and handle withdrawals of up to 2.5 Bcf/d.

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