Plant

With an eye on connecting Permian Basin producers to domestic and international markets, Enterprise Products Partners LP (EPD) has started commercial operations at a cryogenic natural gas processing plant in Loving County, TX.

A unit of General Electric Corp. (GE) plans to close a one-of-its-kind natural gas-fired baseload generation plant in Southern California using turbine technology that has never taken hold commercially.

Opposition is growing for two natural gas power plants that together would add nearly 1,700 megawatts (MW) to the electric grids of New England and New York.

The Sierra Club has reached a rare settlement with Talen Energy that would require the power generator to burn only natural gas at one of its plants in southeast Pennsylvania during the summer months when ozone is at its highest and stop burning coal completely beginning in 2029.

Houston-based Hess Midstream Partners LP and Targa Resources Corp. are teaming up to construct Little Missouri Four (LM4), a 200 MMcf/d natural gas processing plant in North Dakota.

Upstart US Methanol Corp. welcomed local and state leaders this week to a groundbreaking ceremony in Kanawha County, WV, for its first methanol production plant, which would use Appalachian shale natural gas to manufacture the product.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has issued a key air quality plan approval to Archbald Energy Partners LLC for its proposed 485 MW natural gas-fired power plant in Lackawanna County.

A BP plc well in Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay is no longer leaking natural gas, according to the company and the state of Alaska. The well began leaking hydrocarbons last Friday. An oil leak was stopped earlier, but a natural gas leak continued into Monday. “The well is no longer venting gas, which caused an initial spray of crude oil that impacted the well pad…” according to a situation update. “The impacted area is limited to the reserve pit of the gravel pad; however, cleanup responders have not yet confirmed there are no impacts to adjacent tundra. No volume estimate for the crude spray release is available at this time.” The leak was at the BP Exploration Alaska Drill Site 2 pad, Well 3, an oil and natural gas well, in the Greater Prudhoe Bay area, about five miles from the Deadhorse Airport.

The U.S. Fifth District Court of Appeals has denied a plaintiff’s’ petition for a rehearing of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East’s (SLFPA-E) lawsuit against oil and gas companies alleging damages to coastal land. Plaintiffs have exhausted all avenues of litigation, except through the U.S. Supreme Court. “We are pleased with the panel’s decision to uphold the U.S. district court decision to do away with the SLFPA-E lawsuit. These frivolous lawsuits have contributed to the litigious hellhole we now find our state in.” said Don Briggs, president of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association. “This action throws cold water on current litigation against Louisiana’s oil and gas industry.” In July 2013, the Board of Commissioners of SLFPA-E filed a lawsuit in Louisiana state court against 97 exploration and production oil and gas companies alleging that their activities had damaged coastal lands and that they also “increased the risk of flooding due to storm surges and necessitated costly flood protection measures.” The district concluded that on all of the board’s claims, none of the board’s stated grounds for relief constituted a claim under state law. The board then appealed. Last March the appeals court affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the claim.