Approximately

Kinder Morgan has named Tom Martin president of its Natural Gas Pipelines Group, which encompasses approximately 25,000 miles of pipelines with a transportation capacity of more than 22 Bcf/d and about 400 Bcf of working gas storage capacity. Martin joined Kinder Morgan in 2003 and served as president of the Texas Intrastate Natural Gas Pipelines Group since 2005. Duane Kokinda has been named president of the Texas Intrastate Natural Gas Pipelines Group, which operates primarily along the Texas Gulf Coast. The Texas intrastate pipelines include more than 6,000 miles of pipelines with a peak transport and sales capacity of more than 5 Bcf/d. Kokinda joined Kinder Morgan in 1996 and became vice president of business development for Texas Intrastate Pipelines in 2006. Steven J. Kean, who had been serving as president of the Natural Gas Pipelines Group, returns full time to his role as executive vice president and COO of the Kinder Morgan companies.

Los Angeles-based independent Occidental Petroleum Corp. (Oxy) has signed an agreement to purchase Phibro LLC, Citigroup Inc.’s commodities trading unit, for approximately $250 million, Oxy said Friday.

Los Angeles-based independent Occidental Petroleum Corp. (Oxy) has signed an agreement to purchase Phibro LLC, Citigroup Inc.’s commodities trading unit, for approximately $250 million, Oxy said Friday.

Prices were a little stronger overall Thursday but mostly near flat as small gains were approximately even with small losses. The market was certainly stronger than on Wednesday when numbers dropped across the board. The previous day’s end of a nine-session losing streak by September futures — albeit modest with an increase of 2.3 cents — must have helped support the cash market slightly, because weather-based fundamentals will continue to slacken for the most part Friday.

After having pushed June natural gas futures lower Thursday morning on the expectation of a storage build report of approximately 100 Bcf, traders were forced to backpedal higher after the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that 95 Bcf was injected into underground inventories for the second consecutive week. Alas, when all was said and done the prompt-month contract ended up closing at $4.292, down 4.1 cents from Wednesday’s finish.

Excelerate Energy LLC’s Energy Bridge regasification vessel Explorer completed the discharge of its cargo through the company’s Northeast Gateway Deepwater Port, approximately 13 miles offshore Boston, Excelerate said Tuesday.

Bison Pipeline LLC (Bison) has filed an application at FERC to build a major natural gas pipeline that would provide a new northbound route out of the Rocky Mountains to Midwest markets.

Petal Gas Storage LLC, a subsidiary of Houston-based Enterprise Products Partners LP, will conduct a nonbinding open season for approximately 3 Bcf of firm capacity at its gas storage facility near Petal, MS, the company said. The open season is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. CDT on May 11, and will conclude May 21 at 3 p.m. CDT. The additional capacity is expected to be available in spring 2011. For information, contact Russ Kovin at (713) 381-7925 or rkovin@epco.com. Enterprise also said an interconnect operated by CenterPoint Energy between the Petal facility and the Southeast Supply Header pipeline is now in service. The bidirectional meter has a capacity of 750 MMcf/d and provides access to Florida markets.

Approximately 13,000 facilities, including a wide range of energy industry facilities, would be affected by an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposal to require the nation’s major producers of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases (GHG) to quantify and report their emissions, the EPA said.