Politics & Regulation

In a major new development concerning the Turkish Stream gas pipeline to Europe, Russia and Greece have signed a memorandum on joint construction of the pipeline across Greece.

Kinder Morgan, the largest energy infrastructure company in North America, announced last week that it had received approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) regarding the rates, terms and conditions of service for the proposed Palmetto Pipeline on May 1, 2015.

The National Energy Board (NEB), Canada's pipeline regulator, has announced the development of an online interactive Pipeline Incident Map providing Canadians with the opportunity to view all pipeline incidents occurring in the country since 2008.

Nearly five years after the fatal explosion leveling neighborhoods in San Bruno, California caused by a natural gas pipeline rupture, Pacific Gas and Electric Corporation has been ordered by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to pay a record $1.6 billion in fines and other penalties.

Mexico's state-run oil company, PEMEX, will begin the second phase of a 462 mile gas pipeline from Los Ramones, Nuevo Leon to the State of Guanajuato where a number of maquiladoras and automobile factories will use the natural gas as a clean source of power.

In what would have been considered unthinkable just a few years ago, Israel and Egypt have struck a deal whereby Israel will sell at least $1.2 billion of natural gas from Israel’s Mediterranean Tamar field to private industrial customers in Egypt.

Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani has dusted off 20 year old plans to build a $10 billion, 1735 km transnational Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline.

Potential project stakeholders, chief among them the Asian Development Bank, have been invited to a May meeting to be held in Kabul where the initial first steps will be discussed.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the independent agency responsible for regulating interstate transmission of electricity, natural gas and oil, is calling for more natural gas consumption along with an improved natural gas pipeline network to help curb greenhouse gas emissions and meet global climate goals.

Cyprus and Egypt have agreed to look jointly at technical solutions for transporting natural gas through a direct marine pipeline from the large Aphrodite gas field in southeastern Cyprus to Egypt.

"This will optimize the use of the gas infrastructure and achieve an added value for both Cyprus and Egypt," a statement issued by both countries said.

In a substantial boost to the national gas infrastructure, the German Gas Transmission System Operators (TSOs) issued the 2014 Network Development Plan highlighting 51 projects confirmed by the German national regulatory authority (BNetzA). 748 km of high pressure pipelines will be built. Compressor capacity will be increased by a total of 343 MW.

Five years in the making, Myanmar on Wednesday officially opened a $2.45 billion 770 km oil pipeline and a deep sea port off of its western coast for a trial period, a significant pipeline project that will carry oil from the Middle East to China.

Gazprom Chairman Alexey Miller and Turkish Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Taner Yildiz announced during a meeting in Ankara that they have agreed on the trajectory of the new natural gas pipeline to run from Russia to Turkey on the floor of the Black Sea.

In a watershed study conducted by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), serious fault was found with the nationwide natural gas pipeline transmission and distribution network in the United States, leading to accidents causing destruction of property and loss of life.

Despite Islamic State lightning advances in northern Iraq, posing arguably the worst threat ever to Iraq's territorial integrity, Baghdad succeeded in exporting 2.94 million barrels of oil per day in December, the most since the 1980s.

The divisive Keystone XL pipeline project got a big boost when the US House of Representatives passed a bill last week approving its construction.