news news in brief
❙ Kinder Morgan’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company (TGP) is to go ahead with a planned $3.3bn investment in a new natural gas pipeline that will run from Wright in New York to Dracut in Massachusetts in the US. The 30-inch Northeast Energy Direct project is an extension of the existing TGP pipeline and is intended to improve natural gas supply to the state of New England, according to the company. It will have a capacity of 1.3 bcf/day.
www.kindermorgan.com
❙ The US Energy Department has granted conditional authorisation for export of domestically-produced LNG from the Alaska LNG Project to countries that do not have a Free Trade Agreement with the US. The authorisation covers exports of up to 2.55 bcf/day equivalent of liquefied natural gas for a 30-year period. It is subject to the project gaining required environmental and final regulatory approvals.
www.energy.gov
❙ Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) has paid a $300m fine to California state regulators in relation to the San Bruno natural gas pipeline explosion in 2010. Under the terms of the penalty, the company has also agreed a shareholder refund to customers of $400m and system safety improvement spending of $850m. PG&E said it recently sold additional stock to fund the payments.
www.pge.com
4
Shawcor Q2 revenues down as activity slows
Shawcor announced a 10% year-on-year reduction in Q2 revenues last month to CN$398m ($303m) due to softening activity in the Asian and North American markets. The result was also down by 16% on its Q1 figure. “Revenue and operating
margins were negatively impacted by low levels of activity in the Asia Pacific region and in North America where the severe decline in well completions had a detrimental effect on several of the company’s businesses,” said CEO Steve Orr. Shawcor also recorded
restructuring costs of CN$15m in the second quarter. Adjusted EBITDA before restructuring charges was CN$27.9m for the quarter, a decrease of 66% from the CN$83m reported in the second quarter of 2014 and 62% down on the C$74.2m reported in the first quarter of 2015. “In order to respond to
continued lower wellhead associated activity and to implement organisation realignment to better service our customers, we have moved forward aggressively to
complete significant restructur- ing actions this quarter. These actions, combined with our strong balance sheet and strategic positioning, bring confidence that we will be able to make progress on our longer term growth strategy, inde- pendent of the commodity cycle,” he said. The company indicated it expects to take advantage of emerging strategic acquisition opportunities. Orr said the market
conditions remain challenging but that he was confident operational performance would improve in the second half of the year. “In our Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia region, we are now in full
production on the CN$200 million Shah Deniz Stage 2 development project and we will shortly recommence production on portions of the South Stream contracts. In North America, we expect a modest improvement in activity following the excep- tionally low levels experienced in the second quarter.” Some uncertainty still exists
around Shawcor’s contracted work for the cancelled South Stream project. As a conse- quence, the company said it had removed some suspended South Stream contracts from its order backlog, including the Canusa-CPS field joint coating contract with Saipem for South Stream Line 1. However, it said work totalling CN$39m had been completed on South Stream contracts by the end of June with work totalling around CN$75m now remaining. Looking ahead, the
Shawor CEO Steve Orr
company said the value of outstanding firm bids exceeds CN$800m while it said is working with customers on projects with aggregate values of more than CN$1.1bn. ❙
www.shawcor.com
Axalta and Hempel team up in gas
Axalta Coating Systems and Hempel (USA) have teamed up to offer a full package of coating technologies for the North American natural gas transmission sector. The agreement pairs
Axalta’s strong position in PIPELINE COATING | September 2015
fusion bonded epoxy powder and abrasion-resistant overcoats for external pipe-coating with Hempel’s liquid-based epoxies for internal flow coating. “By pairing Hempel and
Axalta’s product offerings, we
offer the gas-pipe industry an unparalleled technology and competitiveness platform,” said Martin Miller, US Downstream Segment Manager at Hempel. ❙
www.axaltacs.com ❙
www.hempel.com
www.pipeline-coating.com
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