Operations
Integrated Corrosion Management of Oil, Gas Installations
Corrosion monitoring of oil and gas installation usually peaks during the operations/production stage, but each stage of the project is (design, construction, commissioning, operations, maintenance/shutdown time) is equally important for these facilities. The activities carried out during the design..
New Report Confirms Pipelines Are One of the Safest Ways to Transport Energy
API has released a new report, with the Association of Oil Pipe Lines (AOPL), confirming that pipelines continue to be one of the safest ways to efficiently transport energy across the United States. The report highlights liquid pipeline safety performance and industry-wide efforts to improve pipeli..
Feds Order More Upgrades to Spectra Pipelines After Blast
GREENSBURG, Pa (AP) – A federal agency has ordered a natural gas pipeline company to upgrade three lines buried in western Pennsylvania, including one that has corrosion similar to a fourth line that blew up in April, scorching some 40 acres. The Pipeline & Hazardous Materials Safety Administration..
Upgrades to Unsafe Tank Cars Could Take 15 Years, Board Says
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Accident-prone tank cars used to haul crude oil and ethanol by rail could remain in service for another 15 years under federal rules that allow companies to phase in upgrades to the aging fleet, according to the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. Transportation offici..
Firm: California Spill Went Undetected Due to Pipeline Work
VENTURA, Calif. (AP) — The operator of a pipeline that spewed tens of thousands of gallons of crude oil into a Southern California ravine said Friday it didn’t detect the leak because the line was undergoing maintenance. Crimson Pipeline said the remotely monitored line was emptied on Wednesday to ..
Cleanup Underway After California Oil Pipeline Spill
VENTURA, Calif. (AP) — Thousands of gallons of crude oil spilled Thursday from a pipeline and flowed down a ravine in Southern California but did not reach the ocean, officials said. As much as 29,400 gallons of oil spilled and flowed a quarter- to half-mile from the spill, fire authorities said. ..
New Pipeline Safety Bill Heads for House Passage; Senate Bill Waiting
Two House committees passed nearly identical pipeline safety bills. Once combined into a single piece of legislation, the House will work with the Senate, which previously passed a bill, to come up with a single version for President Obama’s signature. All three bills pale beside the 2011 pipeline b..
Corrosion Management of Pipelines, Onshore Facilities More Important than Ever
Some pipelines and onshore facilities deteriorate slowly during operation and in certain cases have been reliable for more than their estimated lifetime. Other installations, however, exhaust their useful life after only two to five years of operation. There are numerous factors that affect the lif..
The Downstream Frontline for Integrity Management
Recent news headlines around gas storage incidents highlight the fact that it is not only oil and gas-producing wells that need continuous real-time integrity monitoring to avoid catastrophic leaks. According to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) most recent forecasts, we can expect a sustaine..
Shell: Pipeline Fixed after California Oil Spill
Officials at Shell Oil Co. say crews have repaired an underground pipeline after it broke and spilled up to 21,000 gallons of oil in rural Northern California. Company spokesman Ray Fisher said Tuesday that workers are running small amounts of oil through the pipeline to test it and are working on ..
Despite Leak, Sempra CEO Gets Hefty Bonus
The same year a broken Sempra Energy storage well created the biggest natural gas leak in U.S. history, CEO Debra Reed earned her largest bonus yet. While Reed received no payout for the part of her 2015 bonus that’s tied to customer satisfaction and pipeline safety at two Sempra utilities, amounti..
Husky Energy to Portion off Midstream Assets for $1.7 Billion
Husky Energy will sell 65% ownership interest in select midstream assets in the Lloydminster region of Alberta and Saskatchewan to Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings and Power Assets Holdings Limited (PAH). Husky, which will remain the operator, will receive $1.7 billion of gross cash proceeds, whi..
Mountaineer NGL Storage Open Season Underway
On April 11, 2016, Mountaineer NGL Storage, LLC began its non-binding open season for up to 1.6 million barrels of initial storage capacity with more than 25,000 bbls per day of load-in and load-out. The Mountaineer NGL Storage Project will provide storage services to a growing number of gas proces..
Bayou Bridge Pipeline Begins Nederland-Lake Charles Operations
Bayou Bridge Pipeline started commercial operations on the 30-inch segment of the Bayou Bridge Pipeline from Nederland, TX, to Lake Charles, LA. The project is owned by subsidiaries of Phillips 66 Partners, Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco Logistics Partners. In addition, as a result of successf..
Floridian Natural Gas Storage Announces Non-Binding Open Season for Firm Gas Storage Service
Floridian Natural Gas Storage Company, LLC (FGS) is soliciting non-binding bid proposals from interested parties for a firm liquefaction, storage, and redelivery by vaporization service to a new delivery point through an interconnect with Florida Gas Transmission Company (FGT) at a location at or ne..
House Democrats Seek to Toughen Senate Pipeline Safety Bill
Key Republicans and Democrats in the House were determined to pass a pipeline safety bill this year, although it may have some differences with the bill just passed by the Senate. That bill is called the Securing America’s Future Energy: Protecting Infrastructure of Pipelines and Enhancing Safety (S..
SoCalGas Finally Able to Plug Leaking Injection Well
A Los Angeles-area injection well was permanently sealed on Feb. 18 and taken out of service, according to Southern California Gas. The leak was temporarily plugged earlier and SoCalGas finished pumping cement into the base of the well. Residents who were relocated to temporary housing because of th..
PHMSA Cites External Corrosion as Cause of Santa Barbara Spill
External corrosion on a pipeline pumping crude was the root cause of the rupture last May that spilled over 140,000 gallons of oil on the Santa Barbara coast, federal regulators reported. The spill occurred after pumps on the Plains All American Pipeline were shut down and restarted, sending a large..
U.S. Natural Gas Production Reaches Record High in 2015
U.S. natural gas production reached a record high level of 79 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in 2015, an increase of 5% from the previous year, even as natural gas prices remained relatively low. Production from five states—Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Oklahoma, and North Dakota—was respon..
Natural Gas Storage Ends Winter Heating Season at Record High
Working natural gas inventories ended the winter heating season at 2,478 billion cubic feet (Bcf), exceeding the previous end-of-March record high of 2,473 Bcf, set in 2012, according to EIA’s Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report. Inventory withdrawals during the traditional heating season (November th..
TransCanada Resumes Oil Shipments Through Keystone Pipeline
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — TransCanada Corp. has resumed sending oil through the Keystone Pipeline after a weeklong shutdown prompted by a leak and oil spill in southeastern South Dakota. The pipeline came back online Sunday, but with a reduced pressure. The company says it is continuing cleanup and ..
Oil Majors Only Replace 75% of Oil and Gas Produced in 2015
The oil majors failed to replace all of the oil and gas reserves that they burned through in 2015, a worrying sign for the industry’s future. The Wall Street Journal reported that the seven largest oil and gas companies only replaced about 75 percent of the reserves on average that they produced la..
New Pipeline Safety Proposal Contains Multiple New Requirements
Pipeline industry executives are pouring over the 500-plus page safety proposal from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), an effort that will take some time before informed comments can be made. The initial comment deadline is at the end of May. “The typical 60 days in..
NACE International Brings the Corrosion Fight to Vancouver, BC
NACE Corrosion 2016, held March 6-10 in Vancouver, B.C., brought together a widely diverse representation of those involved in the coating and anti-corrosion materials fields. In all about 6,500 attendees whose interests ranged from applications for highway and bridge construction to wastewater pro..
NACE International’s IMPACT Breaks New Ground in the Study of Corrosion Management
Over past decades there have been significant studies in various parts of the world on the cost of corrosion and how it affects a country’s economy. The often-cited 2002 study, “Corrosion Costs and Preventive Strategies in the United States,”1 revealed that the total annual estimated direct cost of ..
Pipeline Industry Leaders to Produce Safety Leadership Training Program
Caterpillar, in collaboration with PipeLine Machinery International, Inc. (PLM) and a group of industry leading companies, is now offering the Pipeline Safety Leadership Program, a first-of-its-kind training course produced specifically for pipeliners. With a focus on personal accountability for saf..
SwRI-Designed Computer Model Predicts Corrosion Risks
Oil and gas pipelines crisscross the nation beneath critical infrastructure, such as highways, railroads and waterways, as well as passing through population centers. Because over half of U.S. pipelines date to the 1950s and 1960s, corrosion prevention and related repairs are increasingly important ..
CO2 Corrosion Prediction: Consider the Need for Validation
Carbon dioxide (CO2) corrosion modeling software is used by asset owners, contractors and consultants in the oil and gas industry to predict the CO2 corrosion rate at both the design and operation phases of pipelines and well tubing. Prediction results from a dozen CO2 corrosion models are known to ..
Improving Pipeline Corrosion Protection Systems with Computer Simulation
Computer-modeling technology has developed over a number of years and is now widely used to verify the performance of cathodic protection (CP) systems used in combination with coatings to manage the corrosion risk to underground assets. Modeling can be used to verify the protection provided by the ..
Apache Faces More Charges in Canada over Safety
The Alberta Energy Regulator said Apache could be slapped with a penalty of up to $2.5 million for a spill in northwestern Alberta two years ago. In that incident, contaminated water spilled about 40 km from Whitecourt, affecting a nearby creek. Apache has been charged on five counts under the Pipel..
- S.D. Lawmakers Vote to Support Bills Aimed at Preparing for Possible Keystone XL Protests
- TransCanada Restarts Shut Portion of Keystone Oil Pipeline
- Wood Awarded Major Pipeline Construction Contract
- Appeals Court Rejects Dominion's Request for New Atlantic Coast Pipeline Hearing
- Trump Signs New Permission for Keystone XL Pipeline
- Appeals Court Rejects Dominion's Request for New Atlantic Coast Pipeline Hearing
- Michigan Governor Halts Great Lakes Oil Pipeline Tunnel
- Trump Signs Orders to Ease Pipeline Approval, Construction
- Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq Set to Build $18 Billion Oil Pipeline
- Con Edison Halts Gas Hookups, Citing Interstate Pipeline Constraints
