Expanding

Key Republicans in the Senate, led by Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-AK), reportedly are expanding their options for energy legislation.

The Department of Energy (DOE) has announced several new projects aimed at expanding future approaches for storing natural gas, improving gas transportation and pipeline reliability and integrity.

While exports to the United States drive the expanding natural gas sector on Canada’s East Coast, it remains unclear whether there will be a domestic distribution grid in Nova Scotia. The Nova Scotia utility commission has set a deadline of Jan. 14, 2002, to receive applications for a second run at building a gas distribution system in the province. A hearing has been called for Nov. 19 on issues raised by the withdrawal of Sempra Atlantic Gas from the project, including what to do with C$50 million (US$30 million) in installations that the company was able to construct in the Halifax-Dartmouth area.

Despite a regional pocket of persistent resistance, Canadian producers keep on expanding their northern frontier of natural gas development by connecting newly-discovered reserves to the pipeline grid. While a small Indian band continued to hold up the action last week in a 50,000-square-mile area of northeastern British Columbia, the industry moved to add an entirely new supply area in the southern Northwest Territories.

Kinder Morgan Liquids Terminals LLC is expanding its Houston area facilities, considered among the largest independently operated liquids terminals complexes in the world. The Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP subsidiary, based in Houston, said it would spend $16.3 million to add 830,000 bbl of capacity within the next year and also enhance its docking facilities to meet customer expansion requirements and improve service.

Expanding its current fuel management role to merchant power plants, Houston-based Noble Affiliates Inc.’s subsidiary, Noble Gas Marketing, plans to manage the fuel needs of two of the largest merchant power plants in the country with a combined capacity of 4,400 MW. The natural gas-fired power plants are being constructed by Panda Energy International and TECO Power Services. Noble will procure fuel for the Union Power Station in El Dorado, AR, and the Gila River Power Station in Gila Bend, AZ.

Expanding its current fuel management role to merchant power plants, Houston-based Noble Affiliates Inc.’s subsidiary, Noble Gas Marketing, plans to manage the fuel needs of two separate natural gas-fired power plants being constructed by Panda Energy International and TECO Power Services. The company will procure fuel for the Union Power Station in El Dorado, AR and the Gila River Power Station in Gila Bend, AZ.

FERC’s mid-June order expanding price-mitigation around the clock and to the entire western region came under sharp attack from power marketers and generators last week, with some saying it could lead to an “inevitable exodus of marketers” and a “new wave” generation project cancellations in the West.

Ever-expanding San Jose, CA-based Calpine Corp., one of the nation’s fastest growing merchant power plant developers, Tuesday bought another 236 Bcf of natural gas reserves through two purchases–one in the San Juan Basin in New Mexico and the other in South Texas. This brings Calpine’s gas reserves to about 1.5 Tcf, with a goal of having 6.7 Tcf in the company’s portfolio by the end of 2005 to support an almost exclusively gas-fired fleet of plants totaling 70,000 MW of output.