Infrastructure

A unit of San Antonio, TX-based Tesoro Corp. on Tuesday acquired the Dakota Prairie Refinery in the Bakken Shale play in North Dakota from a unit of Bismarck-based MDU Resources Group. The new refinery opened last year and was losing money for MDU.

Full service on Texas Eastern Transmission’s (Tetco) Penn-Jersey pipeline system, which runs from Delmont, PA, to Lambertville, NJ, might not be restored until November after an April explosion and fire on a portion of the system in Westmoreland County, PA, has its owners concerned about safety.

A unit of Royal Dutch Shell plc decided to proceed with a multi-billion dollar ethane cracker in Western Pennsylvania for three primary reasons: cost-advantaged feedstock, market proximity and strong local support, one of the project’s leading executives said Tuesday.

Next-day gas bounded higher Tuesday, led for the most part by an enthusiastic screen that had to factor in the expiration of the July contract as well as longer-dated temperature forecasts showing above-normal temperatures.

As West Virginia endured severe flooding that claimed the lives of as many as 23 people last week, some midstream natural gas operations in the state were affected as well.

An oil pipeline spill from an accidentally opened valve in Ventura County in Southern California last Thursday spewed 25,000 to 30,000 gallons of crude down a canyon, prompting renewed concerns in California where fossil fuel infrastructure breakdowns have become all-too-frequent.

The excitement over Shell Chemical Appalachia LLC’s final investment decision (FID) to construct a multi-billion dollar ethane cracker in Western Pennsylvania was palpable at one of the region’s first shale-related petrochemical conferences in Pittsburgh on Monday.

California regulators on Thursday approved nearly $950 million in increased rates to support Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s (PG&E) natural gas storage and transmission pipeline operations.

The first two natural gas-fired power plants designed and proposed to utilize Marcellus Shale gas have been completed and turned over to the project developer Panda Power Funds LP for commercial operations.