Barnett Shale still produces more than Haynesville, firm says

A Texas-based natural gas consulting firm is challenging the Energy Information Administration's estimate that the Haynesville Shale in Louisiana and Texas is producing more than the Barnett Shale in Texas.

"Our data clearly shows that the Barnett production is still greater than the Haynesville production," said George Lippman, president of Lippman Consulting.

The Barnett Shale averaged 5.52 billion cubic feet per day in February, Lippman Consulting's estimates say, compared with Haynesville daily output of 5.03 billion cubic feet, Lippman said. (Source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram, March 24, 2011)

Energy Transfer seeks federal approval for Tiger Pipeline expansion

DALLAS, Texas - Energy Transfer Partners has filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for a certificate of public convenience and necessity to allow the construction and operation of the ETC Tiger Pipeline Expansion Project, Phase I.
The Tiger expansion is expected to add 400 million cubic feet per day of capacity to the ETC Tiger Pipeline system, bringing total capacity to 2.4 billion cubic feet per day, all of which is sold out under long-term contracts ranging from 10 to 15 years.
Luke Fletcher, vice president of Energy Transfer Partners Interstate Pipeline Division, said: “This expansion of the Tiger System will provide vital take away capacity from the Haynesville Shale and Middle Bossier shale production areas in Louisiana and East Texas, to markets in the eastern half of the US.”
Construction began earlier this month on the original 42-inch Tiger Pipeline, a 175-mile interstate natural gas pipeline originating in Panola County, Texas, and terminating in Richland Parish, La.
The Tiger Pipeline will interconnect to seven interstate pipelines and one intrastate pipeline for final delivery to markets across the Northeast, Southeast, Mid-Atlantic and Midwest.
The Tiger Pipeline, which will have an initial capacity of two billion cubic feet per day, is expected to be in service in the first quarter of 2011. The Tiger Expansion is expected to be in service in the last half of 2011.

Energy Transfer Partners begins construction of Tiger Pipeline

DALLAS, Texas - Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. (NYSE: ETP) on June 1 announced that construction has begun on the 175-mile Tiger Pipeline, an interstate natural gas pipeline to serve the Haynesville Shale and Bossier Sands producing regions in Louisiana and East Texas.
The 42-inch Tiger Pipeline will have an initial capacity of two billion cubic feet per day and is expected to be in service in the first quarter of 2011. Through a planned expansion project announced in February, and subject to FERC approval, the ultimate capacity of the Tiger Pipeline is expected to be 2.4 billion cubic feet per day, all of which is sold out under long-term contracts ranging from 10 to 15 years. Pending necessary regulatory approvals, the expansion is expected to be in service in the last half of 2011.
The Tiger Pipeline will originate in Panola County, Texas, and terminate in Richland Parish, La., interconnecting to seven interstate pipelines and one intrastate pipeline for ultimate delivery to markets across the Northeast, Southeast, Mid-Atlantic and Midwest.
Construction of the pipeline has been awarded to two contractors: Henkels & McCoy (78 miles) and Michels Corp. (97 miles). Pre-expansion project costs for the Tiger Pipeline are expected to be $1.095 billion, down nearly $70 million from previous estimates.
"The start of construction on the Tiger Pipeline marks an exciting achievement for us as we are on schedule and under budget," said Lee Hanse, senior vice president, Interstate Pipeline Division. "From a financial perspective the Tiger Pipeline will benefit our unitholders as it will provide significant distributable cash flow in 2011 and subsequent years."

Petrohawk, Kinder Morgan in Haynesville Shale joint venture

HOUSTON - Kinder Morgan Energy Partners on April 13 said it has agreed to pay $875 million in cash to Petrohawk Energy to form a natural gas gathering and processing joint venture centered on the Haynesville Shale play in northwest Louisiana.
With the creation of KinderHawk Field Services, the small Houston-based exploration and production company will have raised $1.4 billion in cash from asset sales in 2010 alone.
That's on top of another $1.2 billion in asset sales, $2.7 billion in equity fund raising and $1.1 billion in debt issued since December 2007.
“Yes, we've raised a lot of capital, but we've had a great use for those funds,” Petrohawk Chairman and CEO Floyd Wilson said.
In that time the company took its acreage in the Haynesville and expanded it to become a top producer of natural gas from the tight, cement-like shales that until recent years were considered too expensive to drill. Almost single-handedly, Petrohawk created awareness of the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas, becoming the dominant player there.
All told, Petrohawk has gone from being a company with four trillion cubic feet equivalent of gas reserves and a $3 billion market capitalization in December 2007 to 34 trillion cubic feet in reserves and a $7 billion market cap. With the scale also has come greater efficiency: Petrohawk went from 25,000 wells to 5,000 in that same time.

Enbridge Energy Partners plans $141.8 million Texas pipelines expansion

HOUSTON - Enbridge Energy Partners LP is planning to expand its East Texas Gas Gathering System.
The partnership will construct three new lateral pipelines linking with the Haynesville Shale play. In addition, it is also planning to build a large diameter lateral from Shelby County to Carthage, Texas.
Total project cost is approximately $141.8 million, which includes approximately 50 miles of 16-inch to 24-inch diameter pipe as well as an additional 38-mile, 24-inch lateral pipeline.
The expansions will increase the partnership's takeaway capacity to 900 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d).

Enbridge announces LaCrosse pipeline to serve Haynesville Shale

SHREVEPORT, La. - Another large pipeline project to move natural gas from the Haynesville Shale and East Texas wells is being proposed by Enbridge Energy, according to the Shreveport Times.
The 340-mile interstate natural gas pipeline would originate at the Enbridge Carthage Hub in Panola County, Texas, enter DeSoto Parish north of Logansport and slice southeast before entering Natchitoches Parish. It will ultimately connect with Southern Natural Gas Pipeline in Washington Parish.
Enbridge held pen houses on Jan. 19 in Logansport and Jan. 20 in Natchitoches to provide information about the proposed 340-mile interstate pipeline.
The LaCrosse Pipeline will join a number of other major pipeline projects that have been announced since Haynesville Shale drilling exploded in northwest Louisiana and East Texas in the spring of 2008.

Duncan, Enterprise Partners expanding Louisiana intrastate system

HOUSTON - Enterprise Products Partners and Duncan Energy Partners have announced plans to expand their Louisiana intrastate natural gas pipeline system.
The system, operated by Acadian Gas LLC, a joint venture of the Partners, is being extended into northwest Louisiana to bring gas from Haynesville Shale deposits to regional customers.
The Haynesville Extension will have a design capacity to deliver 1.4 billion cubic feet per day through a 249-mile pipeline connecting existing infrastructure to the affiliated Cypress gas pipeline. The expansion will provide producers in the Haynesville shale access to nine interstate pipelines - Florida Gas, Texas Eastern, Transco, Sonat, Columbia Gulf, Trunkline, ANR, Tennessee Gas.
Enterprise says the extension provides natural gas shippers advantages in terms of price while diversifying the gas sector in the south Louisiana market. For producers, the company said, the extension offers more options for transactions with their end users.
"The expansion of the Acadian system provides our partnership with another major foothold in a significant non-conventional natural gas producing area," said Michael A. Creel, president and chief executive officer of Enterprise.
The service date for the expansion is September 2011.
The Haynesville Extension will be able to transport 1.4 bcfd through 249 miles of 36-in. and 30-in. OD pipeline connecting to both Acadian’s system and its affiliated Cypress Gas Pipeline.

GMX selling stake in gas gathering operations to Kinder Morgan

HOUSTON - GMX Resources Inc has agreed to sell a 40 percent stake in its gas gathering and compression business to Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP for $36 million. The money will be used by GMXR to expand its drilling program in Texas and Louisiana.
GMX’s salt water disposal assets and other poly pipelines will not be part of the deal and will continue to be wholly owned by GMX's unit, Endeavor Pipeline Inc, the company said
Endeavor will also continue to act as the operator of the gas gathering system. The deal is expected to close in early November, GMXR said.
"The Kinder Morgan transaction provides the financial capacity for GMXR to add a second rig to the Haynesville/Bossier horizontal drilling program," GMX's Chief Executive Ken Kenworthy said.
The Bossier and Haynesville shales contain large quantities of gas and are both located in east Texas and northern Louisiana.

GMX Resources to sell Endeavor Pipeline assets to Kinder Morgan

OKLAHOMA CITY - GMX Resources on Aug. 4 announced a letter of intent to sell an interest in its Endeavor Pipeline assets to Houston-based Kinder Morgan Tejas Pipeline for $40 million.
Selling the midstream natural gas transmission assets will provide capital to add a second H&P FlexRig3 to the Oklahoma City-based company’s Haynesville/Bossier horizontal development program in east Texas and northwest Louisiana.
The sale is expected to be completed within 45 days.
“This transaction will provide enough near-term liquidity for us to be able to activate another FlexRig3 in early October,” said Ken L. Kenworthy, GMX CEO.
GMX has 62,160 acres that are prospective for Haynesville/Bossier development providing 777 horizontal drilling locations.
GMX credits use of the first FlexRig 3 from Tulsa-based Helmerich & Payne for a reduction in drilling costs. Completed well costs for drilling four horizontal wells during the second quarter dropped 40 percent.

New lower-48 natural gas production make arctic pipelines less attractive

ANCHORAGE – A 40-year plan to deliver natural gas from Arctic regions of the U.S. and Canada to the Lower 48 states is under threat from large shale-gas discoveries elsewhere on the continent and slow-moving regulatory processes.
Over the past decade, partnerships involving ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and ConocoPhillips have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on plans to develop Alaska's North Slope and Canada's Mackenzie Delta.
Backers of the 4.5 billion cubic feet a day (cf/d), $30 billion Alaska project and the 1.8 billion cf/d, $13.7 billion Mackenzie Delta venture have tied their hopes to an unshakeable belief that gas prices will again rise well above $10 per 1,000 cf as conventional reserves disappear.
But hopes that these projects will come on stream in the 2010-20 period are fading, because regulators and governments have failed to keep pace with industry timetables for issuing approvals and permits. More importantly, shale-gas discoveries in Texas, Louisiana and Pennsylvania make piping gas from the Arctic look less profitable.
In Alaska, Gov. Sarah Palin’s administration bet $500 million on the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act (AGIA), providing an incentive for construction of a 4.5 billion cubic-foot-per-day natural gas pipeline from Alaska’s North Slope that may never be built.
New discoveries in the Barnett Shale of Texas coupled with new ways to extract gas a mile deep from the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania and the Haynesville Shale in Louisiana could supply the total needs of the U.S. for natural gas for the next 100 years, making a $30 billion line from Alaska increasingly unlikely to be profitable.

CenterPoint unit to transport natural gas for Chesapeake

HOUSTON - A subsidiary of CenterPoint Energy Inc. has agreed to transport natural gas for a subsidiary of Chesapeake Energy Corp.
CenterPoint Energy Gas Transmission Co., the interstate natural gas pipeline subsidiary of Houston-based CenterPoint Energy, will move the Haynesville shale natural gas production of Chesapeake Energy Marketing Inc., a subsidiary of Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake Energy.
The companies entered into two separate agreements to move gas to CenterPoint Energy Gas' Perryville Hub in northern Louisiana and from there to Carthage, Texas. CenterPoint owns and operates a 1.6 billion cubic feet per day pipeline between the two areas.
A 27-month backhaul agreement provides for gas volumes to ramp up to 500 million cubic feet per day of firm transportation capacity, with initial gas flows beginning April 1.

Energy Transfer to build Tiger gas pipeline through Haynesville Shale

HOUSTON - Energy Transfer Partners LP said on Jan. 27 that it will build a 178-mile, 42-inch interstate natural gas pipeline from Texas to Louisiana through the heart of the Haynesville Shale.
The Tiger Pipeline is expected to cost between $1 and $1.2 billion to construct, depending upon final throughput capacity design, with costs incurred over a three-year period, the company said in a news release.
Initial capacity of at least 1.25 billion cubic feet per day may be increased up to two bcf per day based on the results of an open season, the company said.
Energy Transfer agreed to a 15-year firm transportation pact with Chesapeake Energy Corp unit Chesapeake Energy Marketing Inc. for approximately one bcf per day of capacity.
The project will connect to ETP's pipeline system near Carthage, Texas, extend through the Haynesville Shale and end near Delhi, La., interconnecting to at least seven interstate pipelines at various points in Louisiana.