Totaling

Illinois-based Gas Technology Institute (GTI) has signed two contracts with the California Energy Commission (CEC) totaling $3.5 million to support some energy projects in the West. With a satellite office in Davis, CA, GTI will help the CEC develop more economic natural gas-fired combined heat-power (CHP) systems and advanced waste heat recovery technology. GTI received a $1.8 million grant to develop flex-fuel CHP that can operate interchangeably on natural gas or biogas produced by anaerobic digesters at wastewater treatment plants and landfills. GTI also has a $1.73 million grant to demonstrate technology for converting high temperature (900 degrees F) exhaust gas waste heat into electricity on an average-sized industrial furnace.

High Prairie Pipeline LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Durango, CO-based Saddle Butte Pipeline LLC, expects FERC to act soon on its complaint that Enbridge Energy Ltd. has discriminated against it by denying it an interconnection to deliver oil from the Bakken Shale formation to the market hub at Clearbrook MN, a spokesman said Tuesday (see Shale Daily, June 4).

Cheniere Energy Partners LP said it will soon launch the syndication of two new credit facilities totaling about $2 billion. The new senior secured syndicated credit facilities include $750 million at Cheniere Partners and $1.3 billion at Sabine Pass Liquefaction LLC. Proceeds from the Cheniere Energy Partners credit facility will be used to fund the acquisition of the Creole Trail Pipeline, to pay for pipeline improvement and modification costs and for other purposes. Proceeds from the Sabine Pass Liquefaction credit facility will be used to fund the costs of developing, constructing and placing into service the first two liquefaction trains of the Sabine Pass LNG liquefaction project. Closing is expected by the end of the second quarter in conjunction with the closing of equity financing and the purchase of the Creole Trail Pipeline. Cheniere Energy Partners recently announced several deals intended to fund the Sabine Pass liquefaction project (see Daily GPI, May 16).

Australia’s Aurora Oil and Gas Ltd. has made an A$107 (US$111.7 million) unsolicited offer for Eagle Ford Shale-focused Eureka Energy Ltd., which said Monday it is considering the proposal.

In the wake of last week’s decision by the Argentine government to nationalize YPF SA, Moody’s Investors Service has placed Spain’s Repsol and Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline LLC (M&N) under review for possible downgrades.

The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) has withdrawn more than 3,300 acres of public land in southeast Ohio from a federal oil and natural gas lease sale scheduled for Dec. 7, pending a study on the possible effects hydraulic fracturing (fracking) could have on the state’s only national forest.

Williams and ConocoPhillips have agreed to pay fines totaling nearly $250,000 and reduce emissions from some facilities to resolve alleged violations of the Clean Air Act at the Southern Ute Reservation in Colorado’s San Juan Basin near Durango, CO, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Goodrich Petroleum Corp. has purchased leases totaling about 74,000 net acres in the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale (TMS) oil trend in Louisiana and Mississippi for an average $175 per net acre, the Houston-based company said Monday.

Houston’s Newfield Exploration Co. has signed two separate agreements totaling $308 million that will add about 70,000 net acres to its unconventional oil and gas holdings in Utah’s Uinta Basin.