Thread: Texas to pump gas to Mexico

Texas to pump gas to Mexico

Pipeline could pass through Brownsville


Tomasz Wyszołmirski
Underwater pipeline.

Posted: Saturday, June 27, 2015 9:08 pm
BY STEVE CLARK | STAFF WRITER

A proposed pipeline project to supply Mexico with natural gas from Texas would pass through Brownsville, though the exact route appears yet to be determined.

The Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), Mexico’s state-owned electric utility, recently issued a request for proposals for construction of a $1.5 billion, 155-mile pipeline from Nueces County to Brownsville, where it would connect with a $3.1 billion, 500-mile underwater pipeline to the Port of Tuxpan in the state of Veracruz, Mexico.

The South Texas-Tuxpan pipeline would cross the border into Matamoros before turning toward the Gulf of Mexico.

The pipelines are among $9.8 billion in gas transport and power plant projects that are part of sweeping energy reform in Mexico that has opened Mexico’s oil, gas and utility sectors to foreign investment for the first time in decades.

The 42-inch Nueces-Brownsville and South Texas-Tuxpan gas pipelines would have the capacity to feed 2.6 billion cubic feet of natural gas daily to CFE power plants in the eastern, central and western regions of Mexico, including the states of Tamaulipas and Veracruz.

CFE plans to build new gas-fired power plants as well as convert existing fuel-oil-fired plants to gas. The gas transportation and power plant projects, two dozen in all, will add 1,442 megawatts to Mexico’s generating capacity. The gas would come from the Eagle Ford Shale.

Pending approval from regulatory and governmental authorities, CFE expects the construction contracts for both pipelines to be awarded this December and for them to be in commercial operation by June 2018.

CFE estimates that implementing the Nueces-Brownsville project (including engineering, land acquisition, securing permits and funding, and construction) will take 30 months.

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/bus...9c634487f.html

http://www.alipac.us/f19/u-s-eases-4...o-swap-322162/

8/15/15

We can "give" Mexico natural gas and allow the building of a PIPELINE , but the Keystone pipeline has been stalled.

Originally Posted by Newmexican

We can "give" Mexico natural gas and allow the building of a PIPELINE , but the Keystone pipeline has been stalled.

WE don't GIVE Mexico natural gas.
American companies SELL natural gas to Mexican companies at a profit.
Some of the natural gas is used as fuel for Mexican electric power plants that SELL electricity to U.S. power systems, at a profit, but cheaper than we can build new power plants and produce it ourselves.
===============

We also trade our light crude to Mexico for their heavy crude oil, which we refine into gasoline and sell back to Mexico, at a profit.

. . . Up to 100,000 barrels a day of light oil and condensate will be exchanged for heavy Mexican crude . . .

. . . Pemex exported 803,000 barrels a day of mostly heavy oil to the U.S. last year and Mexico imports about half its gasoline . . .


. . . The U.S. exported a record 586,000 barrels of crude a day in April, mostly to Canada . . .

http://www.alipac.us/f19/u-s-eases-4...o-swap-322162/

U.S. Gas to Fuel Petchem Revival in Mexico, IHS Says

Joe Fisher
September 2, 2015

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Mexico's petrochemical industry is on the cusp of a renaissance, thanks to natural gas infrastructure investment on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border that is being driven, in part, by the opening of the country's upstream oil/gas industry to outside investment, according to IHS.

"After 15 years of stagnation, with no new petrochemical production capacity installed in the country and several plant closures, the Mexican petrochemical industry has been overdue for investment and has had to rely heavily on raw material imports to meet its need for local production of many chemicals," said IHS Chemical’s Rina Quijada, senior director, Latin America.

"In 2014, Mexico imported nearly US$24.5 billion in chemicals and petrochemicals to meet its domestic needs, according to ANIQ, Mexico's petrochemical industry association,” Quijada noted. “However, for some chemical value chains, such as polyethylene, the import gap is more dramatic. Last year, Mexico had to import approximately 1.5 million tons of this widely used plastic, which is about 75% of the country's polyethylene demand."

But Mexico will be able to produce more of its petrochemical products in the future, thanks to U.S. gas that is increasingly available, thanks to multiple cross-border pipeline projects, IHS said.

"For Mexico, that [U.S.] gas means access to abundant, competitively priced feedstocks for petrochemical production," Quijada said. "Just as important, it can be used for production of reliable, cost-competitive electricity, which is absolutely essential to grow the entire manufacturing base in the country and to making Mexican petrochemical production cost competitive."

Mexican energy reform is driving billions of dollars in planned midstream investment, as private and state-owned companies seek access to abundant natural gas production available from key U.S. energy plays, including the Eagle Ford shale, which extends from South Texas into Mexico. The Los Ramones (Phase I) pipeline, which came online last December, added 2.1 Bcf/d of import capacity from Texas (see Daily GPI, March 27). Additional projects totaling 3.45 Bcf/d of cross-border capacity are under development, and once online, would significantly increase gas availability in Mexico (see Daily GPI, Aug. 12; July 27; May 15).

"These pipeline investments are needed to connect the regions that don't currently have access to natural gas," said IHS Energy’s David Crisostomo, a natural gas and power analyst. "As a result, fuel-oil generation is still being used in regions such as the northwest, which is more costly than gas. This means Mexican consumers and manufacturers pay more for electricity when compared to their U.S. neighbors.

"Access to more affordable power will not only enable the petrochemical industry to grow and flourish, but also many other industries, such as automotive and consumer goods production," he said. "The process will take some time, but the impacts for the Mexican petrochemical industry, the manufacturing base and the economy will be positive, and the power sector is pivotal to this success."

http://www.naturalgasintel.com/artic...exico-ihs-says

U.S. Gas Pipeline Export Capacity To Mexico To Nearly Double By 2018

Yes, everything is great until it the pipes break, or explodes on your doorstep or fire bombs you or spoils your water supply or your coast line is lined with cancerous oil from off shore rigs with "cement casing" failings or fracking gas wells "cement casings" fail and your aquifers are inundated with cancerous chemicals used in fracking - 50% have failed worldwide so far and they all will fail eventually. How about the levels of radiation in freshly fracked gas? The levels allowable in our drinking water have been raised considerably recently. And the big boys make their monies at our expense.

The sun rises and sets everyday, day after day, never fails, with plenty of CLEAN ENERGY to gather unless a meteor hits us and we all go extinct like the dinosaurs.

And the win blows with great power to be harnessed in many locations - what are we waiting for, why are we expanding dirty toxic energy forms? Oh the big boys want more money, never enough - called GREED -- can't take it with you boys.

The map didn't copy very well.
Click the link to see it.
http://www.pipeline101.com/Where-Are-Pipelines-Located

Where Are Liquids Pipelines Located?

Source: American Energy Mapping (AEM) 2013

• 
  CRUDE
• 
  NGL
• 
  REFINED
• 
  CO₂

The map above shows major crude oil, refined products and highly volatile liquids pipelines in the U.S.

Pipelines exist almost everywhere. Natural gas is delivered directly to homes in relatively small diameter distribution lines buried under the street and even your own yard. Larger cross-country transmission pipelines delivering gasoline, home heating oil, or moving crude oil or natural gas are actually easier to find.

Nearly the entire mainline pipe is buried, but other pipeline components such as pump stations are above ground. Some lines are as short as a mile, while others may extend 1,000 miles or more.

Although a large number of pipeline systems cover distances similar to these, not all petroleum markets are as distant from the point of supply as others.

Some pipelines start from ports, such as San Diego or San Francisco and serve inland areas in California and the southwestern U.S. region. Each region of the country has some unique aspects. Very few pipelines actually cross the highest parts of the Rocky Mountains since the distances are long and the population centers small. But smaller refineries and regional pipelines serve these areas as well.

The United States has the largest network of energy pipelines in the world, with more than 2.4 million miles of pipe.

The network of crude oil pipelines in the U.S. is extensive. There are approximately 72,000 miles of crude oil lines in the U.S. that connect regional markets.

Pipeline companies keep in touch with local emergency responders along pipeline rights-of-way and work with, and sometimes even train with fire departments or hazardous materials units.

One useful source of pipeline location information is the National Pipeline Mapping System (NPMS). The NPMS shows pipelines at the county by county scale.

Government officials and emergency response officials have access to information at a more detailed scale.

http://www.pipeline101.com/Where-Are-Pipelines-Located

Just a sampling below- then there are the "fire bomb" train explosions carrying highly flammable oil or liquified gas thru your neighborhood. Still oil polluting Alaska from the Exxon Valdez and the Amazon tribe plagued with death and cancers galore THAT THE OIL COMPANIES DRAG ON FOR DECADES ANY TYPE OF REPAYMENT, THEN THEY WANT TO MAKE IT A TAX DEDUCTION.


Repeat Oil Spills Turning Peruvian Amazon into 'Sacrifice Zone' for Big Oil

'The situation is criminal'

by Nika Knight, staff writer



Photos from a previous spill show local Indigenous people cleaning up the oil themselves, as they are doing once again after this weekend's disaster. (Photo: Marco Arrana Zegarra/Twitter/cc)

Less than six months after two oil spills in the Peruvian Amazon devastated Indigenous communities and the local ecosystem, yet another spill in the region has been reported.

"Somehow virtually none of the profits generated by the oil industry over decades is available to ensure that Amazonian communities don't have to watch their primary sources of livelihoods—the river, the forest—become irrevocably polluted by spills."
—Andrew Miller, Amazon WatchOn Friday afternoon, a leak was discovered in the Nothern Peruvian Pipeline—the same pipeline responsible for the earlier spills. The latest spill eventually coated over 16,000 square meters of Amazon rainforest in Peru's northeast Loreto region with crude oil, according to OEFA, the country's environmental regulator.

The pipeline is operated by the state-run company PetroPeru.
"Upon initial reports of the spill on June 24th, PetroPeru went into crisis response mode, issuing statements via Twitter to national and international journalists. PetroPeru claimed that the Northern Peruvian Pipeline still isn't pumping oil following the disastrous spills in early 2016, but the OEFA report belies that, stating that they found 'indicators that PetroPeru is pumping hydrocarbons through the pipeline,'" said Andrew Miller, advocacy director of Amazon Watch.

"So it appears that PetroPeru is currently pumping oil, though they publicly deny it," Miller added, "without having carried out the proper reparation and replacement of deteriorated pipeline sections ordered by the OEFA after the prior spills."
As with previous spills, local Indigenous residents have been employed to help with the cleanup—but health officials on Tuesday reported (pdf) a lack of proper safety equipment, which puts those Indigenous people at risk for "poisoning and burns" from direct contact with the crude.
A local wades into an oily stream without any protective equipment. (Photo: Mongabay)

Moreover, while PetroPeru "personnel arrived at the spill site at 10pm [on Friday] and tried to contain the spill using makeshift barriers of leaves and branches," Mongabay writes, the health officials' report states that this "did not help much, because the oil continued to leak and affect lower areas."
A makeshift barrier erected by PetroPeru as an attempt to contain the spill. (Photo: Mongabay)


Miller asserted that at least 430 people are affected by this latest spill.
The health officials found that the "community of Barranca, which is close to the spill site, is most directly threatened," observes Mongabay. "The community of about 725 people lacks basic services, such as safe drinking water and electricity, making it even more vulnerable. If the oil should reach the stream known as Barranca Caño, it would pose a serious risk, because the stream is the community’s main source of drinking water."

Amidst this current scandal, "OEFA announced yesterday that they are fining PetroPeru some 10 million soles (a little over $3 million) for improper clean-up of the Cuninico oil spill in mid-2014," Miller said. "This follows a recent report that Kukama indigenous villagers in Cuninico have high levels of mercury and cadmium in their urine. There's no reason to assume the fate of the at least 430 people impacted by the most recent spill will be much different."

"The third oil spill in the Amazon [this year] and still no preventive actions," noted Henderson Rengifo, of local Indigenous rights group AIDESEP.
Miller roundly condemned what he described as "a system of environmental racism":

Overall at play here is a system of environmental racism in which indigenous villages along the pipeline route become de facto 'sacrifice zones.' Somehow virtually none of the profits generated by the oil industry over decades is available to ensure that Amazonian communities don't have to watch their primary sources of livelihoods—the river, the forest—become irrevocably polluted by spills.

"The situation is criminal," Miller added, "and responsibility extends through PetroPeru to national politicians who weakened environmental regulations in recent years and the international oil companies that benefit from the pipeline."

http://www.commondreams.org/news/201...e-zone-big-oil



Third major oil spill in a week: Shell pipeline breaks in Texas

September11,2016
Thousands of gallons of oil have spilled from a pipeline in Texas, the third accident of its kind in only a week.

Shell Pipeline, a unit of Royal Dutch Shell Plc, shut down their West Columbia, Texas, pipeline last Friday after electronic calculations conducted by the US National Response Center showed that upwards of 700 barrels had been lost, amounting to almost 30,000 gallons of crude oil.

By Monday, Shell spokespeople said inspectors found “no evidence” of an oil leak, but days later it was revealed that a breach did occur. Representatives with the US Coast Guard confirmed to Dow Jones on Thursday that roughly 50 barrels of oil spilled from a pipe near Houston, Texas and entered a waterway that connects to the Gulf of Mexico.

Coast Guard Petty Officer Steven Lehman said that Shell had dispatched clean-up crews that were working hard to correct any damage to Vince Bayou, a small waterway that runs for less than 20 miles from the Houston area into a shipping channel that opens into the Gulf.

The spill was contained, said Lehman, who was hesitant to offer an official number on how much crude was lost in the accident. According to Shell spokeswoman Kim Windon, though, the damage could have been quite significant. After being presented with the estimate that said as much as 700 barrels were found to have leaked from the pipeline due to an unknown cause, investigators determined that 60 barrels entered the bayou.

“That’s a very early estimate–things can change,” Officer Lehman told Dow Jones.

Meanwhile, though, rescue works in Arkansas have been getting their hands dirty responding to an emergency there. A rupture in ExxonMobil’s Pegasus pipeline late last week send thousands of barrels of oil into the small town of Mayflower, around 25 miles outside of Little Rock. Authorities evacuated more than 20 homes in response, and by this Thursday roughly 19,000 barrels had been recovered.

Another incident in Canada this week caused an estimated 400 barrels — or roughly 16,800 gallons — of oil to be compromised in northern Ontario when a train derailed. Originally, Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd said only four barrels were lost in the accident.

source:https://www.rt.com/usa/shell-pipeline-oil-texas-409/

http://bients.com/third-major-oil-sp...-breaks-texas/


Latest Alabama pipeline leak marks Colonial's fifth in the state this year



Temporary blockages or stopples were installed on either side of a leak in the Colonial Pipeline Line 1, which spilled an estimated 336,000 gallons in Shelby County, Ala. in Sept. 2016. (U.S. EPA photo)
By Connor Sheets | csheets@al.com
September 27, 2016 at 7:17 AM,

A pond near Pelham bore a telltale sheen, the odor of diesel hung in the air and a patch of vegetation had withered and died.

Workers who came upon this scene one morning reported it to authorities and later that day an effort began to repair a crack that was leaking diesel fuel from the Shelby County stretch of Colonial Pipeline Company's interstate pipeline into the ground.

The particulars may seem familiar, but only an estimated 127 gallons of fuel were released before the leak was fixed and the date was Feb. 1, 2016, more than seven months prior to Colonial's catastrophic Shelby County break earlier this month.

First discovered Sept. 9, the leak poured hundreds of thousands of gas into the remote William R. Ireland, Sr. Cahaba River Wildlife Management Area near the small community of Maylene, ultimately forcing a shutdown that disrupted gas distribution along much of the Eastern Seaboard for days.

The leak was the most consequential Colonial has sustained in years, but it is by no means the first, or even the worst disaster sustained by the company and its line connecting the oil fields of Houston to the harbors of New York and New Jersey

In the first five months of this year alone, Colonial reported four separate incidents to the federal government in which the pipeline released a quantity of gasoline, diesel, fuel oil, kerosene and/or jet fuel into the Alabama environment, according to federal records.

Between 2010 and 2015, the company made only six such reports to the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA.) In other words, the company has gone from reporting an average of one Alabama incident per year over the last six years to at least five in the first nine months of 2016. Nationwide, the company filed 125 incident reports with PHMSA between April 23, 2010 and May 4, 2016, PHMSA records show.

A Colonial spokesman sent AL.com a brief emailed statement in response to questions about the company's history of pipeline incidents.

"Colonial Pipeline has robust system integrity, inspection and maintenance programs that meet or exceed all federal regulatory requirements," the statement read. "We take these matters very seriously, and we strive to achieve zero-spill operating performance, which is why we invest heavily in safety and system integrity measures every year."

Darius Kirkwood, spokesman for PHMSA, says the agency is investigating what caused this month's pipeline break, emphasizing that the investigation is ongoing and that the agency has not yet made a determination about its cause.

Pipeline breaks can happen for any number of reasons, from drilling accidents to a line forming a weak spot over time that eventually turns into a crack.

"Sometimes issues that are discovered in the course of an inspection may be the operators' fault, sometimes it isn't," Kirkwood said.

"If we determine that an operator has potentially committed violations of pipeline safety regulations then we will issue a notice of proposed violation. We can assess civil penalties - of course we've got our limits there."

Colonial is no stranger to regulators. In 2003 it agreed to spend at least $30 million on upgrades to the pipeline's environmental protection measures and pay the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) $34 million, breaking the record for the largest civil penalty in the agency's history.

The settlement resolved seven charges that Colonial had violated the Clean Water Act in five states, according to an EPA statement announcing the settlement

"The government maintained that pipeline corrosion, mechanical damage, and operator error in seven recent spills resulted in the release of approximately 1.45 million gallons of oil and other petroleum products into the environment, including numerous rivers, streams, and wetlands," the EPA statement read.

In one 1996 incident, a break in a segment of the pipeline that the company was aware was a weak spot spilled nearly a million gallons of diesel fuel into a South Carolina river, killing thousands of animals and ravaging the nearby environment for years. The company ended up paying out $13 million to area landowners and the state in association with that break, according to The Greenville News.

Following the disaster, Colonial boosted its environmental protection and pipeline integrity programs in moves that still echo to this day, company spokesman Steve Baker told the newspaper in June.

"Even today we still kind of point back to that as the day that things changed," Baker said.

The Colonial statement to AL.com about the most recent Shelby County leak emphasized that the company is dedicated to avoiding spills and committed to being accountable when they do take place.

"When incidents do occur, we investigate and determine the cause alongside government regulators, and take corrective actions based on lessons learned to minimize the likelihood of similar events happening again in the future," the statement said.

Brigham McCown, the first PHMSA administrator and current chairman of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Alliance for Innovation and Infrastructure, told AL.com last week that the company still experiences "small leaks," but that they are largely limited to minor spillage caused in pumping facilities.

"My experience with Colonial is that they generally have been far above average when it comes to other operators," he said. "Small leaks typically occur not in the pipes themselves but in the facilities."

But in Alabama, three of the five Colonial leaks so far this year - including the major one in Shelby County earlier this month - have been caused by cracks in the company's more than 5,000-mile-long pipeline.

The company filed more incident reports each successive year between 2013 and 2015, when Colonial filed 28 such reports, its highest tally since 2009, according to PHMSA records.

And the pipeline operator's environmental protection and integrity management practices were not enough to prevent the break that caused the governors of Alabama and Georgia to declare states of emergency earlier this month.

If it turns out that Colonial again violated EPA regulations in connection with the Shelby County break, it could face another round of harsh penalties, according to Kevin Eichinger, the EPA's on-scene coordinator for the spill.

"A group at EPA will do the investigation to determine if any additional penalties are warranted," he said. "That penalty component is not going to happen within the next month or so. The investigation takes some time."

http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2016/09/latest_alabama_pipeline_leak_m.html

Mexico Building Latin America's Largest Solar Farm To Replace Old, Dirty Oil-Power Plant

https://thinkprogress.org/mexico-building-latin-americas-largest-solar-farm-to-replace...
Feb 25, 2014 - At the same time renewable energy has started to take off in Mexico, with construction of the biggest solar power plant in Latin America, Aura ...