Staff

FERC staff will prepare an environmental assessment (EA) of a trio of projects in two dockets that would expand mainline capacity of Texas Eastern Transmission LP by a combined 622,000 Dth/d to serve markets in the Midwest and Southeast with natural gas from the Marcellus and Utica shales.

FERC staff has issued a favorable environmental assessment (EA) for Gulf South Pipeline Co. LP’s Coastal Bend Header Project, which would create expansion capacity to deliver natural gas to Freeport LNG Development LP’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal near Freeport, TX.

BP plc is reducing upstream staff globally from current levels of 24,000 to below 20,000 by the end of 2017, the oil major said Tuesday. U.S. operations would be affected.

The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) has identified thousands of idled well locations it will be focusing on in 2016, according to a 43-page report, “Final Reclamation Inspection and Implementation Program,” completed by COGCC staff.

A Houston-based subsidiary of France’s Total SA and two of the company’s West Desk traders and supervisors allegedly developed a scheme to manipulate the price of natural gas in the southwest United States between June 2009 and June 2012, according to staff in FERC’s Office of Enforcement.

Staff of the New Hampshire Public Utility Commission (PUC) came down on the side of Tennessee Gas Pipeline’s (TGP) Northeast Energy Direct (NED) project, with the competing Access Northeast project of Spectra Energy, Eversource Energy and National Grid coming second in an evaluation of natural gas-related options to lower wholesale power prices.

Environmental groups, the Edison Electric Institute and large natural gas end-users were quick to commend the Senate’s confirmation Thursday of Gina McCarthy as head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), but oil and natural gas companies were apparently following the rule, “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”

Safety staff at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) last week reiterated its rationale for a proposed $2.25 billion penalty against Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) arising from the natural gas pipeline explosion two years ago in San Bruno (see NGI, May 13).

Safety staff at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) on Wednesday reiterated their rationale for a proposed $2.25 billion penalty against Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) in a reply to the utility’s recent filing in the CPUC penalty consideration cases arising out of a natural gas transmission pipeline rupture and explosion in San Bruno, south of San Francisco (see Daily GPI, May 7).