Giant

The Nova Scotian government gave EnCana Corp. the brush off late Thursday, telling the energy giant it does not want to pay any of the costs for a proposed pipeline to carry natural gas from EnCana’s on-and-off-again offshore Deep Panuke project. EnCana had offered the province the opportunity to take an ownership stake. The offer was required under Canadian law.

There may be a role after all for foreign companies seeking to work with the giant Russian gas concern Gazprom on development of the Shtokman natural gas field in the Barents Sea. One day after Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller told Russian television that the massive state oil company will develop the huge Shtokman field on its own and ship supplies to Europe via pipeline instead of to the United States as liquefied natural gas (LNG) (see Daily GPI, Oct. 10), Russian President Vladimir Putin reopened the door to foreign involvement. “Russia has decided to develop this field independently,” Reuters quoted Putin saying following a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “We will be the sole subsoil user and owner of the field, but we do not rule out inviting foreign companies for joint work on development or doing part of the gas liquefaction process and marketing it in third countries.”

Organized opposition is hardening toward a liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal proposed offshore Oxnard, CA. Australian resources giant BHP Billiton is the target of ire for allegedly lobbying its way around more stringent environmental restrictions, according to a report over the Labor Day weekend in the Los Angeles Times.

Another piece of the giant puzzle known as the Rockies Express Pipeline LLC Project is falling into place. Questar Corp.’s Overthrust Pipeline has filed an application at FERC seeking authorization to build a nearly 80-mile extension that would be the westernmost end of the Rockies Express project, a 1,663-mile, 42-inch diameter pipeline that would transport Rocky Mountain gas supplies to markets in the Midwest and East.

Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services (S&P) on Tuesday raised the long-term corporate credit rating on pipeline giant El Paso Corp. and its subsidiaries to “B+” from “B” following the progress the company has made to refocus its businesses. Its outlook is “positive.”

On the eve of the start of the public permitting process, Australian resource giant BHP Billiton’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) unit announced Wednesday it has received interest from 18 large utilities and other major industrial customers totaling nearly 3 Tcf annually for new gas supplies in California from BHP’s proposed Cabrillo Port offshore LNG receiving terminal 14 miles from the shore and 21 miles from Oxnard, CA, 60 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

Although painfully short on details, there was an official announcement Wednesday by Australian energy giant Woodside Energy Ltd.’s U.S. unit in Los Angeles regarding its plans to apply to federal, state and local agencies to develop a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) import project at an unspecified site along California’s coast.

Australian exploration and production giant Woodside Petroleum Ltd. said Thursday that its U.S. production arm expanded its offshore interests in the Gulf of Mexico by acquiring Houston-based Gryphon Exploration Co., a joint venture between Cheniere Energy Inc. and Warburg Pincus.

Following a recent series of deadly accidents involving both its oil and natural gas pipelines, Mexico’s state-owned oil giant Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) said it will spend $330 million to improve the safety of the entire pipeline network.