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Sempra Energy’s Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) utility is still treading water on a four-year attempt to upgrade some underground storage in the region. The utility is still trying to finalize environmental reviews that wary local residents are using to question the projects.

Minnesota-based Xcel Energy’s Colorado utility plans to upgrade and expand its natural gas and steam infrastructure in response to regulatory mandates and safety needs calling for an overhaul of the utility’s pipelines system. Xcel is asking state regulators to approve annual gas utility retail rate increases averaging 3.6% and totaling $113.8 million through 2015.

In an effort to determine which government agency has oversight authority for the Bushton, KS, natural gas liquids (NGL) fractionation plant, three subsidiaries of Oneok Partners LP have filed a declaratory judgment action in federal District Court in Tulsa, OK, seeking a ruling on the jurisdictional limits of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA).

The U.S.Coast Guard should make sure that annual security inspections are conducted of all Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) facilities and upgrade its database where inspection information is stored, the Governmental Accountability Office (GAO) recommended in a new report. Until then, the security of offshore facilities will be spotty at best, the agency said.

Decidedly low-tech compared to the real-time electric grid system, natural gas nevertheless is due for a smartness upgrade in its usually mechanically based infrastructure. From increased uses as a transportation fuel to higher-tech approaches to exploration and production (E&P) in the oil/gas patch, the latest natural gas technological push has been boosted by the burgeoning shale gas sector.

Decidedly low-tech compared to the real-time electric grid system, natural gas nevertheless is due for a smartness upgrade in its usually mechanically based infrastructure. From increased uses as a transportation fuel to higher-tech approaches to exploration and production (E&P) in the oil/gas patch, the latest natural gas technological push has been boosted by the burgeoning shale gas sector.

Decidedly low-tech compared to the real-time electric grid system, natural gas nevertheless is due for a smartness upgrade in its usually mechanically based infrastructure. From increased uses as a transportation fuel to higher-tech approaches to exploration and production (E&P) in the oil/gas patch, the latest natural gas technological push has been boosted by the burgeoning shale gas sector.

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) has approved the continuation through next year of an Elizabethtown Gas utility infrastructure upgrade program, which has already replaced nearly 47 miles of cast iron pipe and constructed two major interconnect projects totaling about 24 miles of new pipeline in Sussex, Warren and Hunterdon counties.

The upgrade of a tropical wave in the southern Bahamas to Tropical Depression 3 (TD3) was almost a given during cash business Thursday, but it didn’t seem to impress traders. Neither did a heat wave forecast for the South and highs reaching the low to mid 90s in parts of the Midwest and Rockies.