February 2010 Vol. 237 No. 2

David N. Parker, president and CEO of the American Gas Association (AGA), announced Feb. 17 that he will retire from AGA at the end of 2010. Parker told the board that his retirement is part of a transition process that he initiated in 2007 to ensure that AGA continues to have a strong leadership team going forward.

ConocoPhillips Alaska president Jim Bowles was killed in an avalanche on Feb. 13 that struck him and missing Conoco employee Alan Gage while the two were snow machining on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula.

Advertisers from the February 2010, Vol. 237, No. 2 print edition of Pipeline & Gas Journal.

Association News: The board of directors of the Colorado Oil & Gas Association (COGA) selected Tisha Conoly Schuller as its new president. Schuller comes from Tetra Tech, an environmental consulting and engineering firm, where she was a vice president for regional operations.

While many in the natural gas industry are uncomfortable with the push toward cleaner fuels and climate change legislation, a combination of factors is joining forces to ensure that natural gas might rightly be crowned as the preferred fuel for the 21st century.

Even with the world having reached a modicum of consensus in Copenhagen, it is becoming clear that the global obsession with anything green has subsided. This is a good thing. We can now move from breathless anticipation of a green dawn, to the more sober work of systematically and thoughtfully building toward a low-carbon future.

The Cockrell Ranch Waterflood project is an ambitious enhanced oil recovery project located in the Texas panhandle. Cano Petroleum uses state-of-the-art technology and methods to recover oil from wells that would have once been considered ‘tapped.'

For many years, gathering field data on existing piping systems remained basically unchanged. As piping systems became more complex, the people collecting field data were often required to place themselves in precarious situations to obtain the needed measurements. Those were the old days.

If your projects typically yield $1 million or more in hard-dollar benefits and have a three- to six-month payback, then life is good. But if you would like to experience such gains regularly, then you might consider implementing in-the-field decision-support systems, which can result in tremendous ongoing cost savings and operational improvements.

Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) gas, also known as sour gas or sulfuretted hydrogen, is possibly the second-most deadly gas after carbon monoxide that man can encounter in the industrial environment. Common in all sectors of the petroleum industry, this gas can be found in any location where decaying matter is present.

In 2009, Michels Pipeline Construction, a division of Brownsville, WI-based Michels Corp., was involved in construction of portions of TransCanada’s 2,148-mile Keystone Pipeline, Kinder Morgan’s 1,679-mile Rockies Express Pipeline and Enbridge Energy’s 1,000-mile Alberta Clipper Pipeline.

On Dec. 3, 2009, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) published its final regulations for control room management (CRM). These regulations were the result of a multi-year effort to address concerns expressed by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

Companies that employ operationally excellent information technology services have a distinct advantage over their competitors, even when market demand is down and credit is tight.

P&GJ’s latest international survey indicates a much higher number of pipelines in the engineering and design phase vs. actual construction. This year’s figures show the international sector accounts for 90,624 miles of pipelines under construction and planned.

The pressures of the financial and economic crisis have lead to a slump in Europe’s natural gas demand. This has caused a sizeable reduction in Russian gas imports – up to 50 billion cubic meters (bcm) in Western Europe alone. Unsurprisingly, Gazprom has turned its attention towards the major emerging natural gas consumer China.

We’ve heard of CPM, or computational pipeline monitoring. Isn’t it time that we embrace the opportunities of VPM: video pipeline monitoring? For years, pipelines have relied on traditional equipment for monitoring; that is, basic instrumentation brought back to the control room via some networking method.

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) published a final rule dictating the shape and content of new control room management programs for hazardous liquid, gas transmission and distribution pipelines.

Technip, in association with JGC Corp. and Modec Inc., was awarded a lump sum contract by Petrobras for the front-end engineering design (FEED) of a proposed floating LNG (FLNG) project.

Bredero Shaw, a division of ShawCor Ltd., received contracts valued at US$170 million from Mitsui & Co. Ltd. to provide pipeline coatings and related products and services for Esso Highlands Ltd.’s PNG LNG Project in Papua New Guinea.

British Gas will match-fund the British government's £400 boiler scrappage allowance, meaning that customers buying a new boiler from British Gas can cut the cost by £800 this winter.

Buckeye Partners and Nova Chemicals Corp. have signed a memorandum of understanding regarding the development of a pipeline to carry Marcellus Shale gas from the Pittsburgh region to a Nova pertrochemical complex in western Ontario.

Chevron Corp. has signed a 15-year deal to sell Japan's Nippon Oil Corp. 4.5 million tons of LNG from its Gorgon project in western Australia.

China National Petroleum Corp. signed an agreement with Myanmar's Energy Ministry to receive exclusive rights to build and operate the China-Myanmar crude oil pipeline.

ConocoPhillips and Abu Dhabi face delays on a $12 billion sour gas project in the sheikdom amid ongoing uncertainty over how to safely transport toxic material, Dow Jones Newswire reported.

To meet increased demand for gas transport capacity, Gasunie's transportation grid in the Netherlands and Germany needs to be expanded urgently, the Dutch-based company reported.

The Dawn Gateway Pipeline Limited Partnership withdrew its applications with Canada’s National Energy Board (NEB) and will work to advance its Dawn Gateway Pipeline project under the jurisdiction of the Ontario Energy Board (OEB).

ENSTOR is conducting a non-binding open season for Phase I of its Houston Hub Project, located 30 miles northeast of Houston, Texas. The season will last from March 1 to March 12, 2010.

ExxonMobil Corp. will work with Qatar Petroleum to develop a petrochemical complex fueled by a huge natural-gas field off Qatar's Persian Gulf coast.

The FERC has authorized construction of the Jordan Cove terminal for LNG imports and a related pipeline project in Oregon.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has prepared a final environmental impact statement (EIS) for the natural gas pipeline facilities proposed by Bison Pipeline, L.L.C.

First Subsea has completed installation of four diverless bend stiffeners for risers and umbilicals off the coast of Gloucester, MA.

The Joint Review Panel has conditionally recommended approval of the proposed Mackenzie Gas Project, after considering its socioeconomic and environmental impact for five years.

J. Ray McDermott, S.A., a subsidiary of McDermott International, Inc. has finalized a transaction with Oceanteam ASA for the construction vessel, North Ocean 102 (NO102) and a new build vessel, North Ocean 105 (NO105).

Cedigaz, the international association focused on natural gas statistics, forecasts that nearly 200 new underground storage sites will likely be built around the world in coming years.

The Nord Stream natural gas pipeline project recently secured the first of two permits it is required to obtain from Germany.

UK-based specialist measurement technology company Optical Metrology Services (OMS) Ltd. has completed a pipe inspection study for BP Exploration (Angola) Ltd. in fields that lie in a water depth of 2,000 m northwest of Luanda, Angola.

An indirect wholly owned pipeline subsidiary of CenterPoint Energy Inc. and NextEra US Gas Assets LLC, an affiliate of FPL Group, Inc., signed a joint development agreement to explore construction of a pipeline in north Louisiana to transport natural gas from the Haynesville Shale.

Keystone Midstream, a newly formed joint venture between Rex Energy Corp. and Stonehenge Energy Resources, L.P., will initially invest up to $25 million to build a high-pressure gathering system and cryogenic gas processing plant in Butler County, PA.

The Cache County Council has approved rezoning of land from agricultural and forest/recreation to the utility corridor overlay zone to make way for El Paso’s $3 billion Ruby Natural Gas Pipeline in southern Utah.

Spectra Energy Corp. has signed binding precedent agreements with Chesapeake Energy Corporation, Consolidated Edison and Statoil Natural Gas for an expansion of its existing Texas Eastern Transmission and Algonquin Gas Transmission pipeline systems to deliver natural gas supplies to the New Jersey and New York area.

Although 629 Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) have been produced to date, they are still regarded as a relatively new technology.

Technip has been awarded a lump sum contract by Repsol Investigaciones Petroliferas SA for the development of two fields located approximately 50 kilometers off the east coast of Spain.

County officials and representatives from TransCanada signed an agreement outlining the terms for the crossing of 12 county roads during construction of the Keystone Pipeline Cushing Extension in Dickinson County, KS.

Turkmenistan last month took another step to reduce its reliance on Russia as an export partner for natural gas, launching a new pipeline link to northeastern Iran.

The Australian office of Fugro GEOS has been awarded a contract by Woodside Energy Ltd. to undertake a year-long metocean study 37 miles north of Broome in western Australia.

Cleve Hogarth has always prided himself as a problem solver and a builder. Along with integrity, can there be any traits more important to someone in the oil and gas business?

District regulator stations are often constructed in densely populated areas such as subdivision communities. They typically require a developer to commit a sizable piece of real estate and often create an unattractive and unappealing installation to the local residents.

Energy conversion technology has played a major role in the oil and gas industry for more than a century, and Dresser-Rand is an industry leader in designing, manufacturing and servicing centrifugal and reciprocating compressors, gas and steam turbines, expanders, rotating separators and control systems.

Energy conversion technology has played a major role in the oil and gas industry for more than a century, and Dresser-Rand is an industry leader in designing, manufacturing and servicing centrifugal and reciprocating compressors, gas and steam turbines, expanders, rotating separators and control systems.

In the pipeline industry, a significant portion of lost profit is due to poor equipment reliability and unplanned production losses. Despite investments in infrastructure, systems, and people, critical equipment reliability problems still persist.

The recent problems with Toyota’s recall due to faulty accelerators in eight car brands have a very important message for engineers and managers dealing with engineering and designing.