Infrastructure

FERC issued a notice of schedule Friday for the Appalachian Basin-to-Southeast Atlantic Coast Pipeline LLC (ACP) and related Supply Header Project, setting a June 30, 2017, deadline to complete a final environmental impact statement.

It’s summer in the Lone Star State and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) is setting power demand records again.

Despite relative calm during the first 10 weeks of the Atlantic hurricane season, forecasters still expect tropical activity this year that could threaten energy interests in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) and along the eastern seaboard.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) was found guilty by a federal jury in San Francisco on Tuesday on five of 11 counts of violating natural gas pipeline safety regulations related to the September 2010 San Bruno natural gas transmission pipeline explosion that killed eight people (see Daily GPI, Sept. 13, 2010).

FERC has issued an environmental assessment (EA) for a trio of projects to enable Texas Eastern Transmission LP (Tetco) to transport up to an additional 662,000 Dth/d of natural gas from the Marcellus and Utica shales on its mainline from Pennsylvania to points in Ohio, Kentucky and Mississippi.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit this week ruled that New Jersey and Pennsylvania regulators did not “act arbitrarily or capriciously” in issuing water quality permits and related authorizations for Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co. LLC’s (Transco) Leidy Southeast Expansion Project.

During the last week of July, Columbia Gas of Virginia (CGV) posted three straight days of record high demand for natural gas, the Chester, VA-based utility said. The consecutive new single day summer delivery levels of natural gas on July 25-27 were prompted by unusually hot weather and the resulting cooling demands of CGV’s electric power generation customers. Power generation demand was 610,313 Dth on July 25, 611,984 Dth on July 26, and 618,128 Dth on July 27, CGV said. The amount of electricity generated nationwide using natural gas reached a record high during July, surpassing a record set in July 2015, according to the Energy Information Administration (see Daily GPI,Aug. 9).

Awash in red ink, Cheniere Energy officials said Tuesday the liquefied natural gas (LNG) operations are adding to earnings and improving cash flow, and they plan to pursue long-term LNG contracts to keep that trend on the ascent.

California Gov. Jerry Brown and state lawmakers on Monday put on hold the state grid operator’s pursuit of a western regional power grid that gradually lessens dependence on natural gas-fired generation among other byproducts called for under a state law passed last year (SB 350). Concerns about the state’s ongoing aggressive climate change programs prompted the action.