Products

Enterprise Products Partners LP said Tuesday it has signed up enough customers to support its planned 270-mile pipeline header system to carry ethane from Mont Belvieu, TX, to petrochemical plants in the Gulf Coast region.

Operations have begun at Enterprise Products Partners LP’s expanded liquid propane gas (LPG) export facility on the Houston Ship Channel, and another one could be in the works as demand for U.S. propane continues to increase, the partnership said.

Operations have begun at Enterprise Products Partners LP’s expanded liquid propane gas (LPG) export facility on the Houston Ship Channel, and another one could be in the works as demand for U.S. propane continues to increase, the partnership said.

Enterprise Products Partners LP infrastructure bounced back from Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and a fire at Mont Belvieu, TX, in 2011, and the partnership will weather the current “tsunami of natural gas liquids (NGL)” that is ravaging margins in the light end of the NGL barrel, Enterprise COO Jim Teague told financial analysts last Thursday.

Enterprise Products Partners LP infrastructure bounced back from Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and a fire at Mont Belvieu, TX, in 2011, and the partnership will weather the current “tsunami of natural gas liquids (NGL)” that is ravaging margins in the light end of the NGL barrel, Enterprise COO Jim Teague told financial analysts Thursday.

Home heating products retailer Dead River Co. plans to sell and supply compressed natural gas (CNG) to commercial and institutional customers in central, northern and eastern Maine from Xpress Natural Gas’ (XNG) soon-to-be-completed CNG terminal in Washington County, ME, the companies said. The customers to be served typically use at least 75,000 gallons of heating oil annually. Boston-based XNG currently trucks liquefied natural gas to industrial customers. The partnership brings together XNG proprietary technology with Dead River’s more than one hundred years of experience in trucked fuels and energy services.

Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) will undertake a 12-14 month comprehensive study of naturally occurring levels of radioactivity in by-products of oil and natural gas development, the agency said Thursday.

Enterprise Products Partners LP has sold out capacity at its planned 1.65 billion pounds/year propane dehydrogenation (PDH), which is scheduled to begin operation during the third quarter of 2015. In anticipation of a continuing decrease in supplies of propylene, Enterprise is in talks with additional customers that could lead to the development of additional PDH capacity, the company said. Last June Enterprise said it would build a PDH facility on the Texas Gulf Coast that would consume up to 35,000 b/d of propane to produce 1.65 billion pounds/year (750,000 metric tons per year or 25,000 b/d) of polymer-grade propylene (PGP) (see Shale Daily, June 22, 2012). The facility is to be integrated with the partnership’s existing propylene fractionation facilities, which have capacity of 5.3 billion pounds/year. The PDH facility will also be integrated with Enterprise’s PGP storage facilities, 102-mile distribution pipeline system and export terminal. “This [PDH capacity] demand is being driven by the combination of a 38% decrease in propylene supplies since 2006 due to additional ethane consumption by U.S. petrochemical companies and the growing supplies of domestic propane from the U.S. shale plays,” said Jim Teague, COO of Enterprise’s general partner.

An expansion of Seaway Crude Oil Pipeline is nearing completion and will increase capacity from about 150,000 b/d to about 400,000 b/d, said Seaway Crude Oil Pipeline LLC, a joint venture of Enterprise Products Partners and Enbridge Inc. Seaway suspended service on its 500-mile, 30-inch diameter pipeline to complete the remaining pump station connections. Service is expected to resume by Jan. 11. In addition to the pipeline that transports crude oil from Cushing, OK, to the Gulf Coast, the Seaway system is composed of a terminal and distribution network originating in Texas City, TX, which serves refineries locally and in the Houston area. The Seaway system also includes dock facilities at Freeport and Texas City. Further expansion of the system is planned to be completed in 2014 (see Shale Daily, March 28, 2012).