October Newsreel: Energy Transfer Completes Texas Independence Pipeline; Equitable Gas Top in Customer Service and More

The number of events submitted for 2008 was 135,521, which represents facility damages, near misses and/or downtime incurred. Submissions rose for the fifth consecutive year, which is indicative of broader support for voluntary data submission into DIRT.

The following stakeholder groups submit data to DIRT: Natural Gas – 41%; One Call Center – 27%; Telecommunication – 23%; Excavator – 3%; Electric – 3%; and Other – 3%. In addition to the larger number of records submitted; the quality of the records improved in 2008. The Data Quality Index (DQI), a measurement of each record's level of completeness, improved from 50% to 57%.

Of incidents reported in 2008, more than half (73,152) had a known root cause, and were identified as follows: notification not made – 37%; excavation practices not sufficient – 37%; locating practices not sufficient – 22%; notification practices not sufficient – 3%; and miscellaneous root cause – 1%.

The DIRT Annual Report is available at http://www.commongroundalliance.com. Stakeholders interested in submitting data to the 2009 report or establishing a Virtual Private Dirt account can visit http://www.cga-dirt.com.

KMP Acquiring Gas Treating Assets From Crosstex
Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, L.P. has entered into an agreement to acquire the natural gas treating business from Crosstex Energy, L.P. for $266 million, including working capital, subject to certain closing adjustments. KMP is purchasing 290 amine-treating and dew-point control plants predominantly located in Texas and Louisiana, with additional facilities in Mississippi, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Kansas. The transaction will make KMP the largest provider of contract-provided treating plants in the United States.

Rich Kinder, chairman and CEO of KMP said, “We look forward to offering natural gas treating services to our Texas intrastate customers and to other producers in various supply basins, including the rapidly developing shale plays.”

Plains All American Acquires Remaining 50% Interest In Gas Storage JV
Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. and Vulcan Capital recently executed definitive agreements under which a subsidiary of Plains will acquire Vulcan’s 50% indirect interest in PAA Natural Gas Storage, LLC (PNGS). The deal is valued at $220 million. Plains will own 100% of the natural gas storage business and related operating entities.

“We are extremely pleased to announce this transaction and are excited about the near-term and long-term potential of the natural gas storage business,” said Greg Armstrong, CEO of Plains.

“The cash-flow stream of our natural gas storage business is essentially 100% fee-based, with available storage capacity substantially committed under contracts ranging up to 10 years in duration. Moreover, the cash-flow profile is expected to increase steadily over the next several years as we continue to expand the storage capacity through our development activities at our Pine Prairie facility,” Armstrong said.