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Plains All American Pipeline LP (PAA) is constructing the Cactus Pipeline, a 310-mile, 20-inch diameter crude oil pipeline from McCamey to Gardendale, TX. It is expected to enter service during the first quarter of 2015. The partnership said it has a long-term agreement for a majority of the pipeline’s capacity and is talking with other potential shippers. The pipeline is expected to cost $350-375 million and transport both sweet and sour crude oil from the Permian Basin to the PAA/Enterprise Products Partners Eagle Ford Joint Venture (Eagle Ford JV) Pipeline. The Eagle Ford JV Pipeline directly serves the Three Rivers and Corpus Christi markets and can supply the Houston-area market through a connection to the Enterprise South Texas Crude Oil Pipeline. Crude oil delivered on Cactus will have access to rail loading capacity at PAA’s Gardendale station and access to the Eagle Ford JV barge dock facility in the Corpus Christi area. Initial capacity will be about 200,000 b/d.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has notified victims of Enron Corp.’s fraud and 2001 bankruptcy that prosecutors may enter into an agreement with imprisoned former CEO Jeffrey Skilling that could result in a resentencing.

Well permitting in Texas during January was up sharply from a year ago, as were well completions. December crude oil production was also up sharply compared with a year ago, but natural gas production slipped, according to the latest figures from the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC).

Texas crude oil production during November was up from a year ago while natural gas production declined; during December, oil well completions were up while gas well completions declined, and the number of drilling permits issued was down from a year ago, according to the latest figures from Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC).

Dominion Resources has formed new unit Dominion NGL Pipelines, which is soliciting interest in a new pipeline that would carry ethane from the tailgate of a new processing plant being built by Dominion near Natrium, WV, to an interconnect with Enterprise Products Partners LP’s planned Appalachia to Texas Express (Atex Express) pipeline near Follansbee, WV.

Anadarko Petroleum Corp. has begun building the Brasada Gas Plant in La Salle County, TX, which is expected to come online in 2Q2013 with initial capacity to process up to 200 MMcf/d of liquids-rich natural gas from the Maverick Basin, where the company operates on about 400,000 gross acres.

Foreign buyers up to now have been gaining intelligence about drilling in North America’s prolific unconventional formations through joint ventures (JV) and region-specific acquisitions with willing U.S. natural gas and producers, but that’s about to change, according to an energy expert with industry consultant PwC US.

A contract signed last week for the liquefaction and export of domestically produced natural gas lends further credibility to the shale gas optimism that has swept the energy industry in recent years, and it could quiet skeptics who think the United States isn’t poised to become an exporter of gas to global markets.

Exporters that aim to enter Asian liquefied natural gas (LNG) markets have to break modern North American habits and relearn an old business culture: strict secrecy, Canada’s National Energy Board (NEB) is being told.