Enterprise to buy Eagle Ford pipeline
HOUSTON: Enterprise Products Partners said it would buy pipeline and processing assets in the Eagle Ford shale in Texas from Pioneer Natural Resources and India’s Reliance Industries Ltd for $2.15 billion.
Pioneer Natural and Reliance have agreed to use the pipeline for 20 years and to provide a minimum volume requirement for the first seven years, Enterprise Products said. EFS Midstream, formed by Pioneer Natural and Reliance in June 2010, includes about 460 miles of natural gas pipelines, 10 central plants and 780 million cubic feet per day of natural gas treating capacity.
Kazakhstan to team up with oil majors
ASTANA: Kazakhstan plans to form a consortium with global energy companies to explore and develop potentially huge hydrocarbon reserves in the Caspian Depression, Energy Minister Vladimir Shkolnik said. Central Asia’s largest economy and the second-largest post-Soviet oil producer after Russia, Kazakhstan for several years has touted the “Eurasia” project, keen to attract capital and technology to drill super-deep oil wells in its west.
Marathon says Kentucky operational
HOUSTON: Marathon Petroleum Corp’s new condensate splitter at its Kentucky refinery is operational, the company said.
Marathon had expected to start up the 35,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) splitter this month. The new unit splits the ultra-light crude produced in Ohio’s Utica shale into naphtha and other feedstocks at the company’s 242,000 bpd Catlettsburg refinery. Marathon started up a 25,000 bpd splitter at its 80,000 bpd Canton, Ohio, refinery in December. The company declined to disclose the Kentucky splitter’s run rate.
Shell reports restarting unit
NEW YORK: Royal Dutch Shell reported it was restarting an unspecified unit at its Scotford upgrader facility near Edmonton, Alberta, according to a message posted on a community information phone line. The activity may lead to intermittent flaring over the next 48 hours but there would not be any impact on production, the message said. Shell runs a 255,000-barrel-per-day oil sands upgrader facility and a 100,000-bpd refinery at Scotford. Upgraders convert mined bitumen from oil sands into refinery-ready synthetic crude.
