Mountain

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy’s Rocky Mountain Oilfield Testing Center (RMOTC) and Ormat Technologies Inc. have produced the first successful generation of electricity using geothermal hot water from a producing oil well in Wyoming, they said this week. The power can be used in oil/gas production, reducing costs and freeing capacity on the power grid.

Houston-based Spectra Energy has signed a transportation agreement with ConocoPhillips to deliver up to 395 MMcf/d of Rocky Mountain natural gas from Clarington, OH, the eventual endpoint of the Rockies Express Pipeline (REX), to the Northeast by November 2010, the company said last Wednesday. Terms of the agreement with ConocoPhillips, one of the sponsors of REX, were not disclosed.

Houston-based Spectra Energy has signed a transportation agreement with ConocoPhillips to deliver up to 395 MMcf/d of Rocky Mountain natural gas from Clarington, OH, the eventual endpoint of the Rockies Express Pipeline (REX), to the Northeast by November 2010, the company said Wednesday.

Despite PG&E Corp.’s decision to drop out of a partnership with El Paso Corp. for the Ruby Pipeline, which would carry Rocky Mountain natural gas to West Coast markets, El Paso remains “optimistic” about its prospects, the pipeline chief said last week. However, El Paso is “not committed yet” to moving forward, said Jim Yardley.

Laramie Energy’s plans to drill as many as 32 wells near Hightower Mountain in Mesa County, CO, will have “no significant impact” on the area’s natural resources, according to Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forest (GMUG) officials.

As the race to move Rocky Mountain natural gas from the Rockies Express Pipeline’s (REX) terminus in Ohio to the Northeast continues to add new entrants, competitors will have to deal with a quickly moving forward pipe proposal from REX itself. Last week, prior to REX announcing that it had completed a successful nonbinding open season for its Northeast Express Project, El Paso Corp.’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline and Equitable Resources Inc. threw their hats into the ring with plans to jointly build a pipeline project from the terminus of REX to serve Northeast gas markets.

As the race to move Rocky Mountain natural gas from the Rockies Express Pipeline’s (REX) terminus in Ohio to the Northeast continues to add new entrants, competitors will have to deal with a quickly moving forward pipe proposal from REX itself. The pipeline said Wednesday it has completed a successful nonbinding open season for the Northeast Express Project, a 375-mile extension of REX that would extend the pipeline’s route from Clarington, OH, and add capacity to receive volumes from Lebanon, OH, to the endpoint in Princeton, NJ.

Move over, everyone; the line-up of pipelines seeking to take Rocky Mountain natural gas to the Northeast just go a bit longer. El Paso Corp.’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline and Equitable Resources Inc. Monday unveiled plans to build another pipeline project from the terminus of the Rockies Express Pipeline (REX) in Ohio to Northeast gas markets.

Dominion is offering customers increased access to new gas supplies expected from the Rocky Mountain region through a project the company announced Friday. It is yet another effort by the industry to move gas eastward from the massive Rockies Express Pipeline (REX).