Facilities

FERC Thursday approved Tallgrass Interstate Gas Transmission LLC’s (previously Kinder Morgan Interstate Gas Transmission LLC) proposal to sell a 432-mile mainline segment to affiliate Tallgrass Pony Express for the purpose of converting it to transport crude oil from the Bakken and Denver-Julesburg/Niobrara shales.

Chief Oil & Gas Wednesday said it has entered into a long-term agreement to supply natural gas to “multiple” IMG Midstream power generation facilities in northeastern Pennsylvania, serving local facilities with Marcellus gas. The power plants will take up to 4,100 Dth/d for each project.

In a move aimed at diversifying the company’s northeastern U.S. power generation portfolio, Halifax, Nova Scotia-based Emera Inc. reported Wednesday that it has entered into a $541 million agreement to purchase three combined-cycle gas-fired electricity generating facilities in New England from Capital Power Corp.

The Dow Chemical Co. on Tuesday confirmed that it is moving forward to expand two big petrochemical facilities along the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana that would be integrated by “advantaged shale gas.”

While rail transport of crude oil is getting a lot of attention these days, railroads are playing a bigger part in the U.S. domestic energy expansion, as BNSF Railway Co.’s $4.3 billion capital budget for 2013 indicates.

FERC on Thursday approved a Houston-based start-up company’s request for additional time to complete construction and place into service the first liquefied natural gas (LNG) peak-shaving storage facility in Florida.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has issued air permits to Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. (CPChem) LP, moving plans for a 3.3 billion pounds/year ethane cracker and two new polyethylene facilities on Texas’ Gulf Coast one step closer to reality, the company said.

A 10-inch diameter pipeline lateral carrying ethane-propane mix from Enterprise Products Partners’ Mid-America Pipeline System in Illinois exploded shortly before midnight Monday. The natural gas liquids (NGL) product burned, creating a large fire that has since been extinguished. No injuries were reported.

In a skirmish between a power generator looking to cover its intermittent service needs and a natural gas pipeline company attempting to switch some underutilized pipe to liquids service, American Electric Power Service Corp. (AEP) has told FERC it has “serious concerns” about a Texas Gas Transmission proposal to abandon portions of its Eunice, LA-to-Hardinsburg, KY, pipeline.