Projects

After four years of pitched battle with homeowners and environmental groups opposed to the construction of a 829 km, 36 inch gas pipeline from central Alabama through southwest Georgia to Orange County, Florida, the Sabal Trail pipeline system has been placed in commercial operation.

Spectra Energy Partners, NextEra Energy and Duke Energy will jointly operate the pipeline system.

The Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline's (TANAP) is 77 percent finished and is set for final completion in 2018, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said at the beginning of the week.

On the one hand the project looks like a win win. On the other one sees yet another trans-boundary pipeline embroiled in great controversy: Nordstream 2 is a twin 1200-km pipeline system proposed to run on the floor of the Baltic Sea and costing over 11 billion euros when completed.

Ottawa has long championed the construction of trans-province pipelines to transport the nation's petroleum wealth to the coast and ultimately foreign markets in Asia. Yet environmental opposition to Trans Mountain and other crude oil pipelines in the western province of British Columbia is so vast it threatens the very viability of these projects in the country.

The governments of Tanzania and Uganda have signed a framework agreement governing the construction of a $3.55 bn,1445-km, 24 inch diameter crude oil pipeline from landlocked Uganda to the blue water Tanzanian port of Tanga.

The pipeline would transport to market recoverable Ugandan reserves estimated between 1.4 - 1.7 bn barrels.

Construction on the 622-km, $800 million Northern Gas pipeline from Tennant Creek to Mt Isa is due to begin in July after months of uncertainty concerning land access.

An expert Central Asian analyst at the British University of Glasgow contends that the construction of the Turkish Stream pipeline will diminish the prospects of the Trans-Caspian pipeline.

Enbridge has announced its intention to build a 1660 km, 36 -inch diameter oil pipeline from the tar sands of Alberta to the company's terminal in Superior, Minnesota. This will be the largest project in the history of the company and cost an estimated $7.5 billion to complete.

Against a background of strained historical relations between China and Myanmar as well as strong environmental opposition, the Myanmar-China crude oil pipeline has finally begun operations.

Kinder Morgan's proposed 692-km Gulf Coast Express Pipeline Project will exploit increased Permian gas production to service promising petrochemical markets along the Gulf Coast - and particularly in Mexico.

The pipeline will run from Waha, Texas to Agua Dulce, which is just west of Corpus Christi.

Oil is expected to flow through the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline under Lake Oahe this week and the parties to the conflict are now engaging in a post mortem discussion to improve the outcome of such projects in the future.

President Trump announced this past Friday that a construction permit for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline has been granted by the State Department.

With the concrete weight coating of pipes to be used in Nord Stream 2 another milestone in the project's development has been reached.

TransCanada will seek regulatory approval from the National Energy Board (NEB) for a new tolling system for its under-used Canadian Mainline natural gas pipeline with a start up date of 1 November 2017.

To this end TransCanada has been building shipper support at lower toll costs to help fill its mainline from Alberta to a hub in Ontario.

Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India (TAPI) have after some 22 years of deliberation begun the process of front-end engineering and design FEED route survey on the so-called peace pipeline that will provide gas to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.