Services

Like many other industrial operators before it, Duke EnergyServices has found that operating along California’s famouscoastline can be a rocky proposition. Duke has been forced to pullback and reconfigure plans for its Morro Bay power plant along thecentral coast to accommodate local city concerns and is makingpromises to increase the city’s coffers by up to 30% through theplant remodel.

Tenaska Alabama Partners LP announced it has executed a fuelconversion services agreement with Williams’ energy marketing andtrading unit for the entire electrical production of the plannedTenaska Lindsay Hill generating station. Under the long-termservice agreement, the Tenaska facility will convert fuel owned andsupplied by Williams into electricity, which will be marketed byWilliams throughout the Southeast region’s wholesale power market.Both companies would not disclose the terms of the agreement or theprojected amount of gas the facility will consume.

Like many other industrial operators before it, Duke EnergyServices has found that operating along California’s famouscoastline can be a rocky proposition. Duke has been forced to pullback and reconfigured plans for its Morro Bay power plant along thecentral coast to accommodate local city concerns and is makingpromises to increase the city’s coffers by up to 30% through theplant remodel.

Reliant Energy Gas Transmission, whose proposal to supplytransportation services to a mega gas-fired generation project wasrejected, is now rapping that very same power project, insistingthat there’s not enough demand to justify the project or thepipeline option that was selected to supply it with natural gas.

GE Power Systems expanded its turbine manufacturing force withyesterday’s announced purchase of Weatherford Global CompressionServices’ Gemini division. Financial terms of the acquisition werenot disclosed.

AltaGas Services acquired a 53-mile gas gathering system andrelated compression in the Kindersley area of Saskatchewan for C$3million. The acquisition of the Kindersley & Kerrobert gasgathering systems are a significant strategic addition to AltaGas’Central Border gas gathering and processing complex. With theaddition of these systems AltaGas’ contiguous presence in westcentral Saskatchewan is 56 miles east from the Alberta/Saskatchewanborder. This extensive area presence provides AltaGas withsignificant opportunity as producers are expected to substantiallyincrease gas drilling activity in this currently largelyundeveloped gas region. Since AltaGas’ first acquisition in thisarea in 1996, Central Border has increased from a 4 MMcf/dprocessing facility with 49 miles of gathering lines to an 81MMcf/d processing complex with more than 311miles of gatheringlines. With the addition of these new assets utilization of theCentral Border complex will be 78%.

Southern Company named Anthony J. Topazi vice president of fuelservices for Southern Company Generation, the business unitresponsible for developing and operating all non-nuclear SouthernCompany generating plants in the Southeast. Topazi is currentlyvice president of the Birmingham division for Alabama Power,Southern Company’s electric operating company in the state. In hisnew position, he will be responsible for managing the company’snon-nuclear fuel business, including planning, procurement anddelivery of the system’s coal, oil and gas requirements. Topaziwill report to John F. Young, executive vice president of SouthernCompany Generation.

A subsidiary of Coastal Field Services has purchased the GilmoreNo. 3 gas processing plant, near Edina, TX, in Hidalgo County fromPG&E Gas Transmission-Texas (PG&E-GTT). The plant wasconstructed in 1997 and has a capacity to extract 6,000 b/d of gasliquids from inlet volumes of up to 125 MMcf/d of gas. Theagreement, signed Nov. 1, also provides for Coastal to controlcapacity both upstream of the plant and exiting the plant.PG&E-GTT will continue to own and operate the Gilmore No. 1 andNo. 2 plants, which have capacity to extract 6,800 barrels per dayof gas liquids from combined inlet volumes of up to 140 MMcf/d.PG&E-GTT also will continue as operator for the Gilmore No. 3plant. “This acquisition reflects Coastal’s strategy of integratingnatural gas infrastructure in areas where Coastal has significantexploration and production interests,” said Coastal CEO David A.Arledge. “Due to ongoing drilling successes and recentacquisitions, South Texas is one of Coastal’s fastest-growingnatural gas production areas.”

Williams Field Services declared force majeure following aThursday morning fire and explosion at its Opal (WY) Lean OilPlant. The fire started about 6:30 a.m. MDT and a rich-oil heaterexploded shortly thereafter. The Lean Oil Plant was removed fromservice but two cryogenic units remained on-line. Volumes throughOpal were reduced to 430 MMcf/d from a normal maximum capacity of700 MMcf/d. However, WFS said it “does not anticipate significantreductions” in overall gas gathered behind the plant or in tailgatedeliveries to interconnecting pipelines.