November 2021, Vol. 248, No. 11

The decision by the Board of Directors to shut down its offices as of Dec. 31 comes as a tough blow for midstream companies, though all things considered the move was not especially surprising.

In this month's global headlines, US Supreme Court Refuses Stay Request for Spire Missouri Pipeline, Summit Midstream Settles Criminal Pollution Charges for $36 Million and more.

In a decision at the end of September, FERC staff handed the pipeline industry what could be a short-lived victory by approving three compressor stations – one new – in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Canada Formally Invokes 1977 Pipeline Treaty with US Over Line 5 Dispute, Gazprom Begins Shipping Gas on TurkStream and more is included in November's project news.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) pipelines are becoming a bigger area of focus in the United States, with 36 publicly announced carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) projects scattered in more than a dozen states.

In November 2019, European Investment Bank (EIB) adopted a new energy lending policy which agreed to phase out the financing of traditional fossil fuel energy projects by the end of 2021. Among the final pipelines that EIB will finance are two notable projects.

The list of companies leading the way in Pipeline & Gas Journal’s 41st annual 500 report will certainly be familiar to long-time midstream observers, with little shake-up in rankings occurring between the 2020 and 2021 editions of the publication.

The unprecedented COVID-19 outbreak has disrupted project timelines of the 731-mile (1,177-km) Dangote subsea pipeline in Nigeria, with one of the contractors saying the delay has come with financial implications.

Today, the pipeline industry can buy a wide range of technologies for automating, managing, monitoring, repairing and improving safety of pipeline infrastructure and operations.

A multinational pipeline company in Canada recently contacted STATS Group to provide leak-tight double block isolation of a 24-inch crude oil line that required to be rerouted because of terrain stability issues.

Ruptures of natural gas pipelines in right-of-ways of roadways are less common, but when they occur, the devastation can be far more extensive than the more common ruptures.

The federal Transportation Security Administration is moving quickly to ramp up the ability of utilities and pipelines to defend themselves against future cyberattacks.

The Desert Hills pipeline would eventually use approximately 80,000 feet of polyethylene, raised temperature high-density polyethylene PE 4710 pipe to provide E&P companies with a way to dispose of the water.

For most pipeline integrity and risk assessment programs, there are two main sources of information, including measurement-driven data that is fed into computational risk assessment tools and information obtained from human observation or perception.

In its International Energy Outlook 2021, the U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that, absent significant changes in policy or technology, global energy consumption will increase nearly 50% over the next 30 years.

The EIA Short-Term Energy Outlook shows U.S. consumption of natural gas is expected to decline from 2020 levels in all end-use sectors except in the industrial sector and among non-specific users, such as lease and plant fuel, pipeline and distribution use, and vehicle use.

News from NevadaNano, TSC Subsea, Ralston, B&K Vibro, Denso and Siemens.

Acting as the veins of a region, pipelines transport water, gas, oil and more. Through a network of pipelines, these materials get distributed to power plants, businesses and consumers’ homes. Wherever these pipelines are, welding is required.

Recently, Kristine Wiley was named vice president of GTI’s Hydrogen Technology Center, which will facilitate increased use of hydrogen in an integrated energy system to meet the challenges of decarbonization.