Work

Magnum Hunter Resources Inc. on Tuesday boosted its 2003 capital expenditure plan by $15 million to $115 million, mostly to ramp up exploration work on new leases in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM). Of the increase, $14 million alone will be directed to offshore activities.

As part of El Paso Corp.’s work to strengthen its balance sheet, the company has sold $10 million worth of South Louisiana condensate and crude terminalling and gathering assets to Plains All American Pipeline LP, a master limited partnership based in Houston.

Coordinating it with other projects going on in the area, Sonat began pipeline integrity work Tuesday on the 16-inch LRC Interconnect Line. The project is expected to run through Monday, during which Sonat will be unable to accept nominations at the Sabine bidirectional interconnect point codes (605200 and 605210) and at the NGPL interconnect point codes (663200 and 663210).

Texas Eastern (Tetco) said Friday it is continuing work on repairing a leak on the M1 24-inch line at the discharge of Oran (MO) Compressor Station under the Mississippi River. The leak was discovered in late February (see Daily GPI, Feb. 24). A previously posted reduction to 70% of capacity at Oran is expected to continue through the end of this winter season, upon which Tetco anticipates a complete shutdown of the line to complete the repairs. The duration of this outage has not been determined, but is expected to be at least one month. Although initial restrictions will be limited to meters downstream of the Longview (TX) Compressor Station on the 24-inch line in zones East Texas and M1, “operating conditions may require restriction of ETX meters upstream of Longview from time to time,” the pipeline said.

Due to the extent of work required at Muddy Gap Compressor Station (see Daily GPI, Dec. 27, 2002), throughput on the Wind River Lateral is expected to stay restricted to 225 MMcf/d through Monday (Jan. 6), returning to normal for Tuesday’s Cycle 1 nominations, CIG said. It had previously expected to complete the repairs Friday. The lateral extends from CIG’s Lost Cabin Compressor Station to the Rawlins Compressor Station.

Consolidated Edison (Con Edison), which was awarded a $439,999 pipeline safety research contract by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), will work together with Witten Technologies and Electromagnetic Instruments to develop a 3-D digital mapping system for identifying steel and plastic underground equipment, and detecting leaks. Commissioned by Con Edison, Boston-based Witten produced underground images of lower Manhattan in August 2001 and January 2002 through a ground-penetrating technique called radar tomography. A piece of equipment similar to satellite radar is placed on the back of a truck, which drives directly over the site taking 3-D pictures of utility infrastructure six feet below the surface. Con Edison’s research contract is one of seven awarded by DOT, totaling $1.6 million. Additional DOT awards for a second phase of the program are pending.

Consolidated Edison (Con Edison), which was awarded a $439,999 pipeline safety research contract by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), will work together with Witten Technologies and Electromagnetic Instruments to develop a 3-D digital mapping system for identifying steel and plastic underground equipment, and detecting leaks.

Dynegy Inc.’s chief administrative officer and chief communications officer both have resigned, but the company said they will work as part-time consultants for the next few months. Milton Scott, who was in charge of administrating human resources, risk management and insurance, and Deborah Fiorito, in charge of the company’s communications, quit in mid-September, but have agreed to provide consulting services to the company over the coming months “as we continue to make adjustments to the business and focus our efforts on the remaining elements of our capital and liquidity plan,” said a spokesman. Scott, a certified public accountant, had worked for Dynegy since 1999, and for 22 years, he worked in the Houston office of Arthur Andersen, where he was partner-in-charge of the Southwest region technology and communications practice. Fiorito joined Dynegy in May 2000. Previously, she was senior vice president at Chase Bank of Texas. Dynegy said it is considering combining the job positions into a single position at a later date.

Transwestern is conducting turbine meter cleaning and inspections on its San Juan Lateral. The work will limit New Mexico measurement points PNM/Blanco and TransColorado to maximum flows of 100,000 MMBtu/d each Thursday and WFS Kutz to 54,000 MMBtu/d Friday. Flow at Colorado measurement points will be limited to 200,000 MMBtu/d each at Northwest Pipeline Monday and at WFS Ignacio Tuesday.