Pipeline set to link pair of projects – Marcellus Shale

Mike Stice, President of Chesapeake Midstream Development, a subsidiary of Chesapeake Energy, spoke during the Marcellus Midstream Conference & Exhibition in Pittsburgh this week. He said the potential for collecting methane, ethane, butane, propane, pentane and even oil make the Utica and Marcellus shale formations very attractive to companies like his. “The diversity of the [...]

Industry Challenges Texas Pipeline Ruling

Pipeline companies are asking the Texas Supreme Court to overturn a ruling they say jeopardizes new projects, escalating the battle over the costs of transporting oil and natural gas produced by the energy boom in South Texas. The industry says its costs are soaring as landowners, bolstered by a recent appellate-court opinion, seek much higher [...]

Alyeska agrees to $600,000 penalty to settle federal cases

The operator of the trans-Alaska pipeline has reached a settlement with federal regulators to resolve four enforcement cases dating back to 2006. Under the deal, Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. will pay a civil penalty of $600,000, which represents a considerable savings over the sum of penalties the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials [...]

PG&E replacing plastic pipes in Cupertino

A San Francisco  neighborhood is being made safer. PG&E is replacing thousands of feet of dangerous plastic pipeline that carries natural gas. That kind of pipe has a history of failure and it did so recently in the very spot where PG&E is now changing it out. PG&E crews began carving out sections of the [...]

Workers repairing the damaged Maui pipeline in New Zealand

Gas supplies to industrial consumers look set to be partially restored this afternoon as workers repair the damaged Maui pipeline in north Taranaki. Acting Energy and Resources Minister Hekia Parata told a media conference in Auckland this morning there were adequate gas supplies already in the pipeline north of the breach to allow some major [...]

Michigan lawmakers want tougher pipeline rules

Two Michigan lawmakers said they’ve introduced proposals for new measures concerning the integrity of oil and gas pipeline infrastructure. U.S. Reps. Fred Upton, R-Mich., chairman of the energy and commerce committee, and John Dingell, D-Mich., a former chairman, in an article in the Kalamazoo Gazette said they’ve introduced plans to “make vital, long overdue improvements” [...]

NTSB releases official report on San Bruno explosion

On Monday, September 26, The National Transportation Safety Board released its full report into the investigation of the deadly PG&E gas line explosion in San Bruno that killed eight people, injured several others and destroyed several homes. Federal officials last month released some of its key findings, including the probable cause, conclusions and a complete [...]

Canadian officials dismiss accident risks on oilsands pipeline

Ottawa – Federal bureaucrats are casting doubts on claims that a controversial oilsands pipeline expansion in the United States would be prone to accidents because of the corrosive nature of crude oil derived from Alberta’s bitumen deposits, according to internal government briefing notes. The possibility of pipeline leaks caused by the crude oil from the [...]

Ancient Roman glass may yield clues to containing nuclear waste

A shipwreck 1,800 years ago in the Adriatic Sea might give scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory better information about how well modern glass might work to contain radioactive waste. The Department of Energy is building a $12.2 billion vitrification plant at the Hanford nuclear reservation to glassify radioactive waste before it is buried deep [...]

Oil industry, under pressure, vows pipeline safety boost

U.S. and Canadian not-for-profit groups said on Tuesday that they’re conducting a “comprehensive” joint study to improve pipeline safety. The effort follows several notable accidents over the last two years, and comes as oil companies are pressing the Obama administration to approve a major pipeline linking Canadian oil sands projects to Gulf Coast refineries. In [...]