Enterprise

Devon Energy Corp., the biggest natural gas producer in the Barnett Shale, estimates that the natural gas in place from its half a million net acres of leasehold in the Haynesville Shale is around 73 Tcf. The company, which wants to add up to 100,000 more acres in the Haynesville play, also has taken a bet on the emerging Horn River Basin in British Columbia, where it now has around 100,000 net acres.

Dan L. Duncan, founder and majority owner of Enterprise Products Partners LP, and his wife, Jan, are donating $35 million to the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. The donation is the second largest in M.D. Anderson’s history; in 2007 Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens donated $50 million. With the Duncans’ gift, which will be allotted over 10 years, M.D. Anderson plans to establish the Duncan Family Institute for Cancer Prevention and Risk Assessment. Duncan is a prostate cancer survivor, and his father died of leukemia. Duncan’s his first wife died of breast cancer and his second died of ovarian cancer. The Duncans in 2006 donated $100 million to the Baylor College of Medicine for its cancer center in Houston, which was renamed the Dan L. Duncan Cancer Center. Duncan is considered Houston’s wealthiest resident. He has a net worth of $7.9 billion and was ranked 117th on Forbes Magazine’s 2008 list of the world’s richest people.

Citing “an ongoing gas quality issue” at the Enterprise Meeker receipt point, Rockies Express (REX) said that effective with Evening cycle nominations for Thursday’s gas day until further notice, nominations at the point are being scheduled to zero. Even though gas flow was interrupted on the gas days of Tuesday and Wednesday, the pipeline said, customers were not impacted as REX was able to utilize linepack to make deliveries. In an update Wednesday, REX said purging and packing operations are nearly complete on Spread 4, and it expected to commence purging and packing operations this week on the rest of the system up to the ANR delivery point, subject to the receipt of required regulatory approvals. “Based upon this schedule, Rockies Express anticipates providing interim service to the ANR delivery point and points upstream” on or about Jan. 5, depending upon weather conditions, continued progress during the commissioning process and receipt of all final regulatory approvals. Currently, service from the WIC receipt point and from the Echo Springs plant is still anticipated to be as late as Jan. 12. All other receipt and delivery points on the REX system upstream of the ANR delivery point are expected to be placed into service at the same time as the mainline system. Nominations of REX’s Overthrust capacity will be accepted effective Jan. 1 for service to Zone 1 delivery points and to Cheyenne HUB. REX continues to expect that full service on its system to Panhandle Eastern in Audrain County, MO, will be available in early February.

Enterprise Products Partners LP said production through the Independence Hub gas platform in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico has reached approximately 600 MMcf/d from 10 wells. As the initial 15 wells are brought on line, producers expect that production at the Independence Hub will be at or near its capacity of 1 Bcf/d by the end of 2007 (see Daily GPI, Sept. 7; July 23; March 9).

Houston-based Aspen Pipeline LP and Texas Independent Energy, a wholly owned subsidiary of Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. (PSEG), said they have signed a memorandum of understanding that could lead to the development of a Texas intrastate pipeline that would deliver high-nitrogen gas production to a 1,000 MW power plant operated by Texas Independent Energy near Odessa, TX. The pipeline would have a capacity to deliver about 50,000 Dth/d of gas from the Yates formation in Gaines, Andrews, Ector and Winkler counties in West Texas. “The Yates formation is approximately 3,000 feet in depth and production of the gas can be viewed as an advantageous market fuel source for Texas Independent Energy in concert with supporting additional exploration and production opportunities for the producer in the region,” said Russ Bourquein, managing general partner of Aspen. For more information on the project contact Bourquein at (713) 554-4476.

Newark-based Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG) has made a series of management and organizational changes, including the naming of new presidents for four businesses: PSEG Energy Holdings, PSEG Global, PSEG Energy Resources & Trade and PSEG Services. The company also is restaffing positions that went unfilled in anticipation of its merger with Exelon, now aborted.

Newark-based Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG) has made a series of management and organizational changes, including the naming of new presidents for four businesses: PSEG Energy Holdings, PSEG Global, PSEG Energy Resources & Trade and PSEG Services. The company also is restaffing positions that went unfilled in anticipation of its merger with Exelon, now aborted.

In the story “Independence Project a Blueprint for Future Deepwater Exploration,” which appeared in Monday’s Daily Gas Price Index and in Natural Gas Intelligence, Enterprise Products Partners President and CEO Bob Phillips was mistakenly identified. NGI regrets the error.

In the wake of the scuttled merger between Exelon Corp. and Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG), Mike Morris, CEO of American Electric Power (AEP), thinks a “huge chill” has been put on mergers and acquisition (M&A) activity in the utility sector.