News

A bidding war has started for the acquisition of Calgary-based Inter Pipeline Ltd. On Wednesday 2 June, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners made a C$8.48 billion ($7.02 billion) hostile bid for Inter Pipeline Ltd. This latest offer valued Inter Pipeline Ltd shares at C$19.75 which is C$3.25 above the previous bid by Pembina Pipeline Corporation.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) has submitted an advisory bulletin to the Federal Register underscoring to pipeline and facility operators requirements to minimize methane gas emissions in the Protecting Our Infrastructure of Pipelines and Enhancing Safety (PIPES) Act of 2020.

Houston based energy exporter and pipeline operator Kinder Morgan Inc, recently announced that it intends to buy New England regional gas storage and distributor Stagecoach Gas Services LLC, for the sum of $1.23 billion. At present, Stagecoach Gas Services is a joint venture between Consolidated Edison Inc and Crestwood Equity Partners Ltd partnership.

This week Iran’s Energy Ministry announced that it had begun to transmit crude oil along the recently completed Goreh-Jask pipeline, which links oil fields near the Iraqi border with the Gulf of Oman port of Jack, thereby bypassing the Strait of Hormuz.

Gas pipeline operator Snam, has initiated establishment of Italy’s first national research centre for hydrogen related technologies. The Hydrogen Innovation Centre will be based at the University of Modena with sister research campuses in Milan and Rome. In time, similar hydrogen innovation centres could be set up elsewhere in Italy to encourage start-ups.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said yesterday that Nord Stream 2 is almost complete with a mere 100-km left to build, according to TASS.

"We hope that construction works on Nord Stream 2 will be completed by the end of this year," Novak told reporters of progress on the pipeline, which will allow Russia to ship more gas to Western Europe, while bypassing Ukraine.

"We want to be Number 1 in the world with Hydrogen Technologies," says the German Federal Minister of the Economy, Peter Altmaier.

Chevron's recently assembled activist Board of Directors  is moving the oil giant to suspend payments from a gas joint venture involving an offshore gas pipeline in the Yadana fields in southwest Myanmar that would have reached Myanmar's military junta.  French energy major Total has joined Chevron in shutting down the money flows to the junta.

In a judgement reverberating through the world of petroleum companies and their suppliers, a court in the Netherlands has ruled that Shell must cut its CO2 emissions by 45% compared to 2019 levels, legally obliging for the first time a company to align its policies with the Paris climate accords.

For the first time the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is moving to regulate cybersecurity in the pipeline industry.  The agency is responding to a computer attack on Colonial Pipeline's East Coast network that crippled nearly half of the company's fuel supply this month – an incident that highlighted the vulnerability of critical infrastructure to online attacks.

In the wake of the Biden administration's decision to waive sanctions on Nord Stream 2's parent company, Nord Stream AG, Poland has come out strongly against the U.S. move, saying the completion of Nord Stream 2 would threaten energy security in central and eastern Europe.

The Biden administration, in a move nobody anticipated, will lift sanctions on Nord Stream AG, the company based in Switzerland and currently building the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany.  Sanctions will also be waived against Matthias Warnig, CEO of Nord Stream and ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Rosprirodnadzor, the Russian regulator part of the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation, has reported a pipeline spill of some 100 tons in Russia's northwestern region of Komi. The leak flowed into Kolva, a local river, creating an oil slick requiring immediate attention.

News outlets are reporting that Colonial Pipeline paid nearly $5 million to Russian hackers responsible for the attack on Colonial's pipeline network.

The hackers, known worldwide as The DarkSide and apparently originating from Eastern Europe, has told hacking associates that it is shutting down, according to security research firms. Its website has been down since last Thursday.

The midwestern American state of Michigan has ordered Canada’s Enbridge to close its Line 5 pipeline which delivers nearly half of the oil needs of Ontario and Quebec as well as propane to Michigan State.

With some 60 percent of gas stations in metro Atlanta out of gasoline and 43 percent in Georgia and South Carolina overall without fuel, Colonial Pipeline began to restart the nation's largest operating pipeline of 8851-km as the Southeast United States began to get out from under.

The Rosen Group, the world's premier provider of in-line inspections of pipelines, is one of nine companies participating in the CIAM ("Cooperative Development of a Comprehensive Integrated Autonomous Underwater Monitoring Solution") project during an online event on 30 April.

A devastating cyberattack has forced U.S. fuel pipeline operator Colonial Pipeline to shut down its entire network of 8851-km of pipelines, the company said over the weekend.

State-owned Brazilian Petrobras, has gained government approval to sell its remaining 10% stake in the country’s natural gas pipeline operator, Nova Transportadora do Sudeste (NTS), for $337m (BRL1.8bn).

At least ten new specialist companies have joined the AquaVentus consortium responsible for constructing a massive integrated 10 GW offshore North Sea wind-to-hydrogen project.

Robert Kasande of the Ugandan Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development has announced that compensation to those affected by the Ugandan section of the planned East African Crude Oil pipeline could reach the equivalent to $18 million.

Honeywell, a Fortune 100 technology company that delivers industry-specific solutions for buildings and industry, is introducing an automated methane monitoring solution to help European companies better address their climate goals.

In a long-standing partnership with Bayernwerk Netz GmbH, MAX STREICHER GmbH & Co. KG aA is building a ring line in the town of Plattling (around 130 km east of Munich) to strengthen the regional power network.

If Germany and the rest of Europe are to become climate-neutral by 2050 while maintaining their industrial might, they will have to import vast amounts of hydrogen.  To this end the Port of Rotterdam is already exploring how hydrogen can be imported from a large number of countries around the world.  It is also setting up Porthos, a carbon transport and storage system.  Porthos i

More than ten years of complex negotiations between Angola and neighboring Zambia have resulted in a $5 billion deal to build a products pipeline between Lobito and Lusaka.

At the signing ceremony in Luanda, the Zambian government was represented by Energy Minister Mathew Nkhuwa, with Angola represented by Petroleum Minister Diamantino Pedro Azevedo.