Construction

President Trump devoted less than two minutes of his first address to Congress to discuss energy issues, but he used the plenum Tuesday evening as an opportunity to mention several of his accomplishments during his first weeks in office.

Sempra Energy is doing its own due diligence as the joint venture (JV) it helped fashion to build liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities at its Cameron, LA, terminal site is grappling with construction delays that the contractor now estimates will push back the facility’s start to mid-2018, Sempra’s senior executives said Tuesday on a year-end earnings conference call.

Energy Transfer Partners LP (ETP) is sticking to an aggressive timetable for its Rover Pipeline, deploying “a tremendous amount of manpower” to clear trees along the route before its window of opportunity closes at the end of March, management said Thursday.

The legal, political and regulatory battle that has hobbled the nearly completed Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) project marked another legal juncture Wednesday.

Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. LLC (TGP) has asked FERC to approve by the end of this month plans for a looping project on its 300 Line that would serve growing demand in the Middle Atlantic and New England regions with additional service from Susquehanna County, PA, to Pike County, PA.

Multifuels Midstream Group LLC, a portfolio company of Warren Equity Partners, recently purchased 124 miles of high-pressure natural gas pipeline in central Texas from an unnamed master limited partnership. It said Thursday it will add new pipe, interconnects, gas measurement and pressure regulation to the system. The completed system will serve end-use customers in the Bastrop-to-Hallettsville, TX, corridor, via an anchor long-term contract. Construction is expected to be completed by end of 2018. The acquisition is Warren’s first add-on to its Multifuels platform investment, which was closed in January 2016 in partnership with Houston-based Multifuels LP to build an operating company focused on gas distribution to utility customers and other natural gas end-users.

FERC has granted Tennessee Gas Pipeline LLC (TGP) permission to make modifications to two existing compressor stations in Kentucky as part of its proposed Broad Run Expansion Project, but it said the company may not yet begin construction elsewhere.

Energy Transfer Partners LP (ETP) said Tuesday it was not halting construction of the $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline LLC system in North Dakota, countering a statement reportedly by the Obama administration indicating that building would be voluntarily halted.

Now free of its oil/natural gas exploration/production (E&P) business after selling it late last year (see Daily GPI, Nov. 3, 2015), Bismarck, ND-based MDU Resources Group’s senior executives are touting the growth in the utility holding company’s substantial stake in the construction services/materials business.