Planned liquefaction/LNG export facilities along the South Texas coast and growing demand from Mexico’s electric power sector together will require several billion cubic feet/day of additional U.S. natural gas over the next three to five years. Gas producers from the Marcellus/Utica to the Permian are targeting these markets, but there are questions regarding whether the Lone Star State’s existing pipeline infrastructure is sufficient to deliver all that gas to these critically important export markets. Part of the solution will be optimizing the use of Texas’s impressive—but sometimes misunderstood intrastate pipeline networks, particularly the far-reaching systems operated by Enterprise, Energy Transfer and Kinder Morgan. Today, we discuss one part of the solution, an inexpensive but impactful Kinder Morgan project that will enable about 1 Bcf of natural gas from various sources to reach South Texas LNG exporters and Mexico on KM’s intrastate system.
For some time now, three of the more frequent topics in the RBN blogosphere have been rising natural gas production; the potential for liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports from the Gulf Coast and pipeline gas exports to Mexico; and the infrastructure needed to deliver gas to these markets. Most recently, we addressed all three of these topics in Part 1 of “Miles and Miles of Texas,” a two-part Drill Down report on Marcellus/Utica gas being piped to Louisiana and Texas to help meet export demand—and on the challenges inherent in moving all that gas to Gulf Coast liquefaction/LNG export terminals and south of the border into Mexico. (Part 2 of the Drill Down will be published in the next couple of weeks.) In Part 1 we noted that while Texas still produces more natural gas than any other state (20.1 Bcf/d of marketed production as of June 2016, according to the Energy Information Administration, or EIA), the three states in the Marcellus/Utica plays (Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia) together produce even more (21.8 Bcf/d as of June) and because of favorable economics could—and probably will—produce a lot more in the years ahead. We also discussed the fact that, thanks to flow-reversal projects on several major interstate pipelines between Texas/Louisiana and the Northeast, some Marcellus/Utica gas already is being transported to the Gulf Coast, helping meet demand from the first two liquefaction “trains” at Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass LNG export facility in southwestern Louisiana; see Way Down Yonder on the Sabine-ahoochee and Commencing Countdown, Engines On, and those volumes will only increase as more liquefaction/LNG export terminals come online and as pipeline-gas exports to Mexico accelerate.
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As we will get into in Part 2 of the Drill Down Report, a big question for gas producers, midstream companies, LNG exporters and Mexico’s gas market has been, “How will all that gas be transported across miles and miles of Texas, given that the state’s interstate and intrastate pipelines were developed primarily to move gas north and east to the Houston area and Louisiana, and from there to markets in the Northeast and Midwest?” The answer to that question is complicated—in fact, it will take quite a bit of pipeline-network rejiggering to enable the gas demanded by planned LNG export facilities in Freeport and Corpus Christi, TX (and other possible LNG projects along the Texas Coast) and by Mexico.
A prime example of the outside-the-box thinking that will be needed, though, is Kinder Morgan’s (KM) recently completed Tejas Crossover Pipeline Project (thick blue/black line in Figure 1), a new 52-mile, 36-inch-diameter connector between KM’s two primary intrastate gas pipeline systems in Texas. To keep things simple (we say this in jest), KM gave its two Texas intrastate pipeline systems virtually identical names—sort of like naming two of your sons John and Juan, or two of your daughters Mary and Maria. The KM Tejas system (Tejas being the Native American name for the Texas region—our music-minded readers might recall that it’s also the title of ZZ Top’s fifth album) is represented by the blue lines and mostly runs closer to the coast, while the roughly parallel KM Texas system (red lines) is further inland. (The Tejas/blue-line system generally has higher gas-carrying capacity.) As the title of today’s blog suggests, KM’s new (and aptly named) Tejas Crossover Pipeline (green line) moves gas over (from KM Texas to KM Tejas), under (ground), sideways (toward the coast) and down (toward South Texas and Mexico).
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About the song
"Over Under Sideways Down" was written by Jeff Beck, Keith Relf, Chris Dreja, Paul Samwell-Smith and Jim McCarty (Yardbirds). It appears as the second song on side one of the Yardbirds' third studio album, released in the UK as Yardbirds and Roger the Engineer, and in the U.S. as Over Under Sideways Down. Released as a single in the UK in May 1966, and in the U.S. in June 1966, the song went to #13 on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart. According to Yardbirds' drummer Jim McCarty, the song was inspired by Bill Haley and His Comets' "Rock Around the Clock." Jeff Beck started jamming on the song's bassline, and the group were soon working on an arrangement. The song was in need of an intro, and when Beck came up with the signature riff of the song — a sinewy, Eastern-inspired, mind-blower of a lick that only the mind of a guitar master like Beck could come up with — the group knew they had a hit on their hands. Guitar players are still trying to master that riff five decades after it was created. The free-form lyrics about Swinging London sound like they could have been penned by the hipster bebop entertainer Lord Buckley. The original chorus was changed from "Over under sideways down, that's the best that I have found," to "Over under sideways down, backwards forward square and round," to make any innuendo less obvious to radio programmers. Personnel on the record were: Keith Relf (lead vocals), Jeff Beck (lead guitar, bass guitar), Chris Dreja (rhythm guitar, backing vocals), Paul Samwell-Smith (backing vocals), and Jim McCarty (drums, percussion, backing vocals).
Roger the Engineer (Yardbirds, Over Under Sideways Down) was recorded between April and June 1966 at Advision in London, with production handled by Simon Napier-Bell and Paul Samwell-Smith. Released in the U.S. in July 1966, the album went to #32 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart, making it the highest-charting studio album by the band. The album, along with the Yardbirds' appearance (with Jimmy Page included) in the 1966 Antonioni film, Blow Up, helped catapult the band to the forefront of British psychedelia. One single was released from the LP.
The Yardbirds are an English rock band formed in London in 1963. They started out as a blues band known for their "rave up" instrumental breaks, but broadened their music to include pop, psychedelic, and hard rock. They are famous for starting the careers of the triumvirate of rock guitarists: Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. Under the tutelage of Jeff Beck, they contributed to many electric guitar innovations of the mid- to late ’60s. They have released six studio albums, 12 live albums, 10 compilation albums, two EPs and 16 singles. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. Twenty-four members have passed through the band since its inception. The group still tours with founding member Jim McCarty being the only original member. Keith Relf died in May 1976, and Jeff Beck passed away on January 11, 2023.
We at RBN are deeply saddened by the recent passing of Jeff Beck. The iconic guitarist left an indelible mark on music with his work in the Yardbirds, the Jeff Beck Group (which helped to launch the careers of members Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood), and all of his innovative solo works. Our sympathies go out to his family, fans and loved ones.
