Infrastructure

Spectra Energy Transmission’s Texas Eastern Transmission announced an expansion to serve industrial markets in South Louisiana by Spring 2015 with shale gas supplies from multiple basins. An open season runs through Sept. 27.

Shell Offshore Inc. has awarded Paris-based Technip the contract to install a subsea natural gas pipeline structure in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico (GOM) in the Stones field in the Walker Ridge blocks that are part of the prospective Lower Tertiary Trend.

Would-be exporters of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Canada’s West Coast and from the Lower 48 face multiple challenges. Up north the main worry is pricing and securing contracts to support the project, while down south the main threat is of a regulatory/political nature, according to an analysis by the International Gas Union (IGU).

TransCanada Corp. won a national political boost Thursday for the proposed partial conversion of its natural gas Mainline to oil service from the Canadian Senate’s energy, environment and natural resources committee.

On a national basis, compressed natural gas (CNG) as an alternative transportation fuel continued to make progress in mid-August, with developments including new conversion standards in California to hip SUV fleets on the Las Vegas Strip.

PG&E Corp. CEO Anthony Earley in a Wall Street interview Wednesday held out the possibility of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy by the company’s giant San Francisco-based combination utility, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E), if a proposed $2.25 billion penalty by state regulatory safety staff is upheld by the five-member California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC).

UGI Corp.’s Pennsylvania-based natural gas utility has agreed to pay a $1 million fine to settle allegations that it failed to adequately maintain and repair a 50-year-old high-pressure gas main in Wilkes Barre.

The number seven is a symbol of fortune and intelligence in China and that luck is being pressed by the Asian-owned seventh proposal for liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports to the Orient from the Pacific Coast of British Columbia (BC).

While still awaiting aU.S. State Departmentgreen light on another U.S.-Mexico gas pipeline border crossing, Sierrita Lateral (seeDaily GPI,Aug. 13),Kinder Morgan’sEl Paso Natural Gasunit has moved ahead with the start of operations at its Norte Crossing facilities near El Paso, TX (seeDaily GPI,June 18). Up to 366 MMcf/d can now flow to a new delivery interconnection with the Tarahumara Pipeline at the U.S.-Mexico border beneath the Rio Grande River. Ultimate end-users include five new gas-fired power plants scheduled to be developed during the next 15 years by Mexico’s state-ownedComision Federal de Electricidad. The Norte II power plant was slated to start up earlier this month, drawing its fuel from the Norte Crossing tie-in.MGI Supply Ltd., a firm shipper on El Paso’s system, has a new agreement for capacity at the proposed Norte Crossing facility, allowing MGI to export gas from the United States to Mexico to serve the Norte II CFE power plant.