February 2020, Vol. 247, No. 2

In a roundabout way of looking at things, the pipeline industry received an unexpected Christmas gift recently when the Rev. Jessie Jackson offered his hearty endorsement for the construction of a natural gas pipeline in a community near Chicago, Ill. (And, yes, I am writing about that Jessie Jackson.)

Before what was once a quiet middle-class suburban neighborhood in San Bruno, Calif. had cooled into silence, a decade-long response in the U.S. pipeline industry was already underway, focusing on the molecules making up modern large-diameter pipe and the densely populated areas in which these energy highways traverse.

Flexible pipes were initially applied offshore as “kill and choke” lines, but today are found in every major production basin worldwide and used in a variety of applications to keep production flowing efficiently.

Oil transfer and storage businesses (onshore), which fall under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA90), are familiar with the 2016 National Preparedness for Response Exercise Program (PREP) Guidelines.

Michels Canada is working with gas distribution company FortisBC to complete a two-year project to upgrade 12.4 miles (20 km) of the Lower Mainland Intermediate Pressure System Upgrade (LMIPSU), which serves more than 210,000 customers in Vancouver, Burnaby and Coquitlam. Already one of the most densely populated areas in Canada, metropolitan Vancouver’s population is nearing 2.5 million people and continues to rise.

The application of smart pipeline technologies such as automation are bringing major operational and cost benefits to the oil and gas pipeline sector. These smart technologies are helping to maintain integrity of ageing assets, long-distance pipeline assets, unexpected cyber threats and an ageing workforce.

Perhaps the biggest news to come from the oil-rich Bakken region during the year was the recent announcement by Dallas, Texas-based Energy Transfer that it wants to double the volume on its Dakota Access pipeline to 1.1 MMbpd.

According to the analysts for the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), the consumption of electricity in Mexico will grow at an annual rate of 2.6% through 2031, largely due to constant population increase, expected to reach 138.4 million by the end of that period.

While proven reserves of natural gas in Latin America represent only 4% of global reserves, gas pipeline infrastructure is currently insufficient to meet growing demand.

The oil and gas supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) market is expected to grow over the next five years because of increased demand for the remote management of pipelines and growing pipeline networks. The question is: What approach should your operation take when setting up your SCADA system?

The pipeline supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) operator has one of the most critical jobs in the pipeline industry and should be given all the help available to keep pipelines safe and liquid flowing. To this end, more than 25 years ago, a major oil company determined that SCADA-embedded operating procedures and safety features were needed to improve safety.

The increasing exploration for and discovery of oil and gas reserves offshore Africa has raised prospects of growth of the continent’s offshore pipelines market.

Inline inspection (ILI) by means of intelligent pigging has become a standard application to ensure the safe operation of pipelines worldwide. Ultrasonic inspection tools have proven successful for crack and metal loss inspections of liquid pipelines.

Newly established Tumbleweed Midstream announced it has acquired the Ladder Creek Helium Plant and its associated 730-mile (1,175-km) gathering and distribution pipeline systems from DCP Midstream.

The National Petroleum Council (NPC) released a report focusing on pipeline permitting solutions, which suggests the regulatory process for infrastructure needs to be simplified to eliminate redundancies.

Like other manufacturers, the oil and gas industry is impacted by the impending departure of an aging workforce. The people who make up this group have decades of institutional knowledge that has become second nature within the work environment, yet much of this knowledge is unstructured and not readily available to others across the organization.

TC Energy said its TransCanada PipeLines unit reached an agreement with struggling producers to reduce tolls on the western part of the Canadian Mainline pipeline and asked regulators to approve the rates quickly.

Crude oil prices surged in early January and retreated by mid-month after a U.S. drone strike on Iran’s top general and a retaliatory missile strike on an Iraqi military base. The initial strike caused the largest one-day price spike since September, when an Iranian drone hit a Saudi Aramco facility.

Occidental Petroleum (Oxy) said it will make its Western Midstream (WES) business a standalone company, shedding $7.8 billion in debt through its separation of the former Anadarko pipeline business.

A Squamish Nation lawyer told a Canadian Court that the government delayed sharing critical documents about spill risks related to expanding its oil pipeline, in some cases waiting until after the conclusion of consultations with indigenous communities.

Commodities trader Mercuria Energy Group expects to open a new U.S. Gulf Coast crude oil storage facility next year that could compete to become a trading hub for shale oil, the Swiss company’s investment chief said.

North Dakota will work with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to help develop a response plan for a potential spill of the Dakota Access pipeline, a state official said.

Bulgaria started receiving natural gas from Russia’s Gazprom via Turkey on January 1 and will no longer use the route through Ukraine and Romania, Energy Minister Temenuzhka Petkova said.

Energía del Pacífico (EDP) said it has completed project financing for the LNG-to-power project currently under construction at the Port of Acajutla, El Salvador. The infrastructure project brings approximately $1 billion foreign direct investment for the Central American nation, making it the largest private investment ever in the country, EDP said.

Sempra LNG said its Cameron LNG facility in Louisiana has begun producing LNG from the second liquefaction train of the export facility, fewer than five months after its first train started commercial operations in August.

An order issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in December against state subsidies for nuclear and renewable energy – called “out-of-market subsidies” – apparently gives a big boost to electric utilities using natural gas and the pipelines that feed them.

For the oil and gas industry, coarse filtration of various fluids is critical to ensure reliable production, extend the life of midstream equipment and increase the intervals between backwashing or necessary maintenance.

Mainline Control Systems (MCS), in conjunction with Kleiss & Co., is offering utilities the technology and tooling to tap and stop flow on vintage piping materials and nonstandard-inch sized pipes.

Subsea pipelines polymer-lining specialist Swagelining installed its LinerBridge connector technology for the first time within pipeline bundles at one of Equinor’s developments in the Norwegian North Sea.

Michael Isper is the new director of Security, Reliability and Resilience at INGAA. He began his energy career in the environmental and hazmat compliance field while at a mid-sized utility in Ohio, and later in Virginia at Dominion Energy.

Construction of the $5 billion (C$6.6 billion) Coastal GasLink pipeline in western Canada has resumed, after an indigenous group that opposes the project had ordered its workers off their territory.

Private midstream energy company Outrigger Energy II said it is constructing a 70-mile gathering system and cryogenic plant in North Dakota to service XTO Energy natural gas production under a long-term, definitive gathering and processing agreement.

India approved funding of $774 million (955.6 billion rupees) for a natural gas pipeline in its northeast, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said, as part of a national gas grid being built to span remote locations.

Chesapeake Utilities has announced that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has issued an order approving the Company’s proposed Del-Mar Energy Pathway Project.

Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said that he will ask for a natural gas pipeline being developed by Canada’s TC Energy Corp to be rerouted, so it does not cut across lands considered sacred by communities in Puebla state.

Russia is building TurkStream and doubling the capacity of NordStream across the Baltic Sea to Germany as part of plans to bypass Ukraine in its gas deliveries to Europe.

Calgary-based Gibson Energy approved the construction of 1 million barrels of new tankage at its Hardisty Terminal.

Williams placed its Gateway Expansion into full service 11 months ahead of schedule through “expedited project execution and construction,” boosting natural gas deliveries to the energy-hungry U.S. Northeast by 65,000 MMcf/d, in time for the winter heating season.

Global pipeline services provider T.D. Williamson turned 100 on Jan. 2, 2020. During its anniversary year, the company said, it will recognize its growth along with the the oil and gas industry, salute the people responsible for that growth and celebrate its partnerships with leading pipeline organizations.