Kilometers

British Columbia will eclipse Alberta as Canada’s top gas producing province by tapping prolific shale deposits, the National Energy Board said.

With an eye toward the future, Royal Dutch Shell plc hired more than 4,500 energy professionals and added 43,000 square kilometers (16,602 square miles) to its exploration portfolio last year to rejuvenate company resources. The Anglo-Dutch major also reported a 60% rise in profit in the last three months of 2007.

EnCana Corp.’s revamped Deep Panuke natural gas project, which would be located about 250 kilometers offshore Halifax, received formal approval Tuesday by Nova Scotia and Canadian regulators even though the company has not yet decided whether to proceed.

Up to 800 MMcf/d of capacity in northern Alberta has been impacted by two ruptures earlier this week about 15 kilometers apart on a 36-inch NOVA line (see Daily GPI, Dec. 3). Emphasizing they were only ballpark figures, a pipeline spokeswoman said the segment where the ruptures occurred usually flows 1 Bcf/d but has been restricted to about 200 MMcf/d. An unspecified amount of deliveries were affected, she said. That volume was hard to calculate because presumably customers may have been able to re-source gas elsewhere. Crews are working on the ruptures 24 hours a day, the spokeswoman said, but there is no prognosis yet on when full service will be restored. Pipeline ruptures are fairly rare anyway, she noted, so having two close together within a short time period is very rare. Investigators are evaluating the sites; at this point there are no suspicions of terrorism being involved, she said. In response to the ruptures, NOVA said Wednesday it is operating supplemental compression at Zama Lake to move additional flow from Segment 1 (UPRM) into Segment 3 (NWML). It also is moving additional supplemental compression into the area in order accommodate additional flow in Segments 1, 2, partial 5, 26 and 27. See the bulletin board for other actions and restrictions prompted by the ruptures.

Two line breaks in the same pipe 15 kilometers apart on a remote section of TransCanada PipeLine’s Nova system Monday and Tuesday have shut down the 36-inch pipeline, impacting a number of customers. There were no reports of injuries in the resulting fires.