Chosen

U.S. manufacturers of ammonia-based nitrogen fertilizer made with low cost natural gas feedstock are raking in profits and moving ahead with plans to expand domestic operations.

Shell Chemical LP has chosen a rural area outside of Pittsburgh as the potential location for a major petrochemical complex that could include an ethane cracker in the heart of the Marcellus Shale.

South Africa-based Sasol has chosen southwestern Louisiana as the site for a gas-to-liquids (GTL) facility. The project is slated to be the first plant in the United States to produce GTL transportation fuels and other products.

BP plc has chosen a new chairman whose expertise is in technology — as opposed to someone schooled in oil and natural gas — to take the helm when Peter Sutherland steps down at the end of this year. Carl-Henric Svanberg, now chairman and CEO of Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson, will join the BP board as chairman-designate and become a nonexecutive director on Sept. 1. He officially will step down at year-end from Ericsson and succeed Sutherland as chairman of BP on Jan. 1. Based in London, Svanberg, 57, is expected to devote most of his time to BP business. “Following such a distinguished predecessor is quite a challenge but I’m hugely excited about joining the energy industry, which is so much at the heart of the global economy. I look forward to it with relish,” Svanberg said. Sutherland, 63, has been chairman of BP since 1997. He was scheduled to step down in April, but earlier this year he agreed to remain in his post because of the difficult market conditions that had delayed the search for a replacement. BP CEO Tony Hayward said Sutherland “will be a hard act to follow. But I am sure Carl-Henric will be a worthy successor. He is a businessman of international stature who is recognized for his transformation of Ericsson. Our shared views on many aspects of global business give me great confidence that we will work very effectively together on the next phase of BP’s progress.”

BP plc has chosen a new chairman whose expertise is in technology — as opposed to someone schooled in oil and natural gas — to take the helm when Peter Sutherland steps down, the London-based energy giant said Thursday.

Proving that it pays to follow instructions, TransCanada Corp. has been chosen by Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her administration to build a pipeline from the North Slope to Alberta to commercialize the state’s vast natural gas reserves. The pipeline company’s proposal, called TC Alaska, will be presented to state lawmakers, who will have 60 days to decide whether to move forward with the project.

Proving that it pays to follow instructions, TransCanada Corp. has been chosen by Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her administration to build a pipeline from the North Slope to Alberta to commercialize the state’s vast natural gas reserves. The pipeline company’s proposal, called TC Alaska, will be presented to state lawmakers, who will have 60 days to decide whether to move forward with the project.

With expectations that liquefied natural gas (LNG) will chosen to plug the hole in the United States’ natural gas supply deficit in the future, ChevronTexaco Corp. announced plans Thursday for an LNG receiving terminal in Mexico and an LNG shipping facility in Nigeria. The company also updated its progress on a receiving terminal to be located offshore Louisiana, where other top operators are aggressively trying to establish toeholds in the U.S. LNG marketplace (see Daily GPI, Oct. 30).

The management plans proposed by El Paso Corp.’s current directors and the replacement directors chosen by some of the company’s top shareholders are similar in how the company would be run going forward. However, differences abound in how management and directors would be compensated and how businesses and executives would be evaluated going forward.