Transmission

The Transportation Department’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) said it will extend the public comment period for proposed rules governing natural gas transmission and gathering lines by another 30 days, but it was half of what the oil and gas industry had requested.

The Transportation Department’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) said it will extend the public comment period for proposed rules governing natural gas transmission and gathering lines by another 30 days, but it was half of what the oil and gas industry had requested.

Sempra Energy’s two California utilities plan to file with California regulators by the end of this month to proceed with a new natural gas transmission pipeline link in the heart of San Diego County and the center of the population at the southern end of the state.

County road workers punctured a 12-inch diameter Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) transmission pipeline last Friday, injuring up to 14 people and closing north-south state Highway 99 in California’s Central Valley near Fresno. The incident was caused by an excavator and was not the fault of the company, according to officials.

Columbia Pipeline Group (CPG) is planning two pipeline projects at a combined cost of $1.75 billion that would carry up to 1.5 Bcf/d of gas from the Marcellus and Utica shales to markets on Columbia Gas Transmission and Columbia Gulf Transmission.

American Electric Power (AEP) is “successfully executing” its long-term earnings growth strategy, which includes investing in the company’s utility operations, retiring a number of coal-fired plants and building its transmission business to support an annual earnings growth rate of 4-6%, CEO Nicholas K. Akins, told shareholders at the company’s annual meeting Tuesday in Fort Wayne, IN.

EQT Midstream Partners LP said Tuesday it has entered into agreements with a subsidiary of Range Resources Corp. to provide gathering, compression and transmission services for Range’s growing Marcellus Shale production in southwest Pennsylvania.

A unit of Bismarck, ND-based MDU Resources on Thursday launched an open season for a proposed $650 million natural gas transmission pipeline connecting plentiful Bakken Shale supplies to markets in the Great Lakes. Planning for the 375-mile pipeline is under way at MDU’s WBI Energy Inc.

As natural gas production steadily increases in the Utica Shale and a new joint venture (JV) emerges to handle midstream services, the business model for Dominion East Ohio (DEO), whose operations run through the heart of the shale play, is forecast to change in some areas, but not in others.