Border

FERC Friday issued a favorable draft environmental review of Kinder Morgan’s international Sierrita Pipeline project, which would deliver natural gas to southwestern markets in the United States and high-growth power generation markets in northern Mexico.

Traffic continues to grow on the northbound natural gas freeway from the United States into Ontario and Quebec, fueling plans to increase delivery capacity on the Canadian side of the border.

While the U.S. State Department stopped short of endorsing the U.S.-to-Mexico Sierrita Lateral Pipeline being proposed by Sierrita Gas Pipeline LLC, it said it has “no objections” to a presidential permit being issued for the project.

The United States has been the sole customer for Canada’s oil industry, but with energy independence on the horizon south of the border, Canadians are looking for other markets.

A state-of-the-art terminal in northwestern Alberta to provide sand for unconventional drilling operations is set to open this November, Edmonton-based Di-Corp said Wednesday.

With exploration and production (E&P) activity heating up along the eastern border of Montana as an extension of the North Dakota oil and natural gas boom, state lawmakers in the Big Sky state have proposed about a half-dozen new laws to deal with the impact on the local communities in the region.

Mexico’s Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) was reported Thursday on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border to be contemplating layoffs of up to 15,000 workers as apart of an overhaul of the government’s energy supply operations. However, NGI sources in California and Mexico City said it may be premature to talk about the possible downsizing of a workforce that is 72% union represented. “Given new appointments [to senior positions], there is a plan to reorganize the company into upstream and downstream segments,” said a Mexico City source who follows Pemex. A total restructuring is “still in process, so nothing has happened so far,” the source said. In California, an energy attorney specializing in Latin America said he had not heard of any layoffs, but any such move would be part of Pemex’s upcoming “modernization and streamlining efforts.” A spokesperson for Sempra Energy, which has extensive holdings in Mexico, said the company’s Mexico City office was unaware of any Pemex plans for layoffs.

Canada’s First Nations on Wednesday protested across the country — blocking railways, border crossings, and in some places hindered access to oil and natural gas facilities — to protest the federal government’s passage last month of an omnibus budget bill that altered the rules for leasing tribal lands.

Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) has launched an investigation following an explosion at a natural gas compression facility in the northern Mexico border town of Reynosa, near McAllen, TX, where at least 29 people were killed and as many as 50 more were injured. Seven people reportedly were missing.