Diameter

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) experienced leaks and a resulting fire in its two-inch diameter plastic distribution main at the end of last month. As a result, it is facing the prospect of stepping up surveying and maintenance of its 40,000-mile distribution pipeline system. The company’s transmission pipelines have been under scrutiny following a deadly explosion one year ago.

El Paso Corp. last Thursday placed into service its 680-mile, 42-inch diameter Ruby Pipeline, which will ship Rockies natural gas to West Coast markets in direct competition with Canadian gas. Ruby is the largest gas pipeline project to serve the West since the expansion of the Kern River Gas Transmission in 2003, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

El Paso Corp. said Thursday it has placed into service its 680-mile, 42-inch diameter Ruby Pipeline, which will ship Rockies natural gas to West Coast markets in direct competition with Canadian gas.

FERC Wednesday gave El Paso Corp.’s Ruby Pipeline the go-ahead to begin service on the 680-mile, 42-inch diameter line that will deliver Rockies natural gas to West Coast markets.

A rupture on Enterprise Products Partners LP’s 20-inch diameter South Texas pipeline system in Wilson County southeast of San Antonio shut down a stretch of roadway Thursday afternoon, but there were no injuries and only one producer was affected, an Enterprise spokesman said. “We don’t know what happened, but shortly before 1 [p.m. Thursday] our control room personnel detected a pressure drop on that line and immediately began shutdown procedures…” spokesman Rick Rainey told NGI. “There was no ignition…but the line did rupture. A couple of county roads were shut down for a brief period. Repairs were expected to be completed by last Saturday morning. Rainey said there was no excavation going on in the area as far as Enterprise officials knew. The cause was under investigation.

More than 45 minutes after all hell broke loose when a 30-inch diameter natural gas transmission pipeline ruptured last September, Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s (PG&E) pipeline system control center was still unsure about the extent of the problem and whether it involved the utility’s transmission pipeline, according to a 441-page transcript that was one of hundreds of records made public Tuesday at a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) hearing. It began three days of fact-gathering in Washington, DC.

After a delayed start pushed into mid-January (see Daily GPI, Jan. 19), TransCanada Corp. has its new 303-mile, 30-inch diameter Bison Pipeline operating at near 90% capacity bringing Rockies supplies to the Midwest via an interconnection with Northern Border Inc., a U.S.-based company executive told NGI Thursday.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Hanford nuclear compound in Washington state is in the very early stages of planning to run a six-inch diameter natural gas pipeline under the Columbia River to supply a massive wastewater treatment plant during the next eight years. The 28.5-mile, $22 million project would be facilitated with the local utility Cascade Natural Gas Co., tying into its existing pipeline system on the Oregon side of the river and then connecting to the still-to-be-built water treatment facility. The plant was originally planned to operate with diesel, but the proposed pipeline would permit it to have dual fuel capability, operating mostly on natural gas, a Hanford facility spokesperson said. The gas line would provide more cost savings and environmental advantages, greatly reducing the proposed plant’s greenhouse gas emissions. “The gas also can help support steam generation for [onsite] electricity and also heat for 11 different facilities,” he said. Plans call for the pipeline to be permitted and built during the next four years, and the wastewater plant to begin operation in 2019, turning high-level waste into glass. “It’s really a glass-making plant,” the spokesperson said.

A segment of the 36-inch diameter Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) owned and operated by El Paso Corp., exploded and caused a fire at about 10:30 p.m. EST Thursday near Dungannon, OH, a spokesman told NGI Friday.