Infrastructure

A Canadian energy entrepreneur on Thursday unveiled plans to build an underground transmission project linking natural gas and renewable energy resources in Ontario (ON) to Pennsylvania.

Already promoting diesels, hybrids and electric vehicles (EV), Volkswagen (VW) is reportedly considering a natural gas vehicle (NGV) model in the United States, drawn by abundant U.S. natural gas supplies. Fueling infrastructure remains a concern of the German automaker, however.

FERC Thursday approved Gulf Crossing Pipeline Co. LLC’s proposal to build and operate lateral facilities that would provide firm transportation services to a natural gas-fueled, combined cycle power plant that is under construction in Sherman, TX, which is 60 miles north of Dallas and near the Barnett Shale.

Veresen Inc. has filed an application with Canada’s National Energy Board (NEB) for a long-term license to export natural gas from Canada to the United States to supply its proposed Jordan Cove liquefied natural gas (LNG) project at Coos Bay, OR, the Calgary-based company said Tuesday.

On the third anniversary of the Sept. 9, 2010 San Bruno natural gas transmission pipeline rupture and explosion pipeline owner/operator Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) said it has settled substantially all of the legal claims that resulted from the blast.

While there is still much bullishness toward natural gas as a transportation fuel, industry leaders cast some doubts over its relative role in building demand for gas at LDC Gas Forum Mid-Continent in Chicago on Monday.

If U.S. natural gas supplies are going to find a market, increased gas-fired power generation on both sides of the border with Mexico and a number of forgotten heavy industries are going to have to soak up huge chunks of the additional output from shales, according to energy analysts who appeared on a supply-demand panel at the LDC Gas Forum Mid-Continent meeting Monday in Chicago.

Natural gas has real opportunities for growth in the upper Midwest and nationally, especially in the industrial and transportation fuel sectors, Nicor Gas President Elizabeth Reese told the LDC Gas Forum Mid-Continent meeting Monday in Chicago.

The federal judge overseeing the BP plc claims settlement process regarding the Macondo well blowout has expanded former FBI Director Louis Freeh’s duties after the special master found some problems with the claims office.