Natural gas pipelines

U.S. LNG export capacity is poised to grow tremendously over the next few years, mostly near the Texas/Louisiana border. The gas-focused Haynesville Shale in northwestern Louisiana and northeastern Texas is a prime source of additional supply for those new and expanded terminals. But plans for new north-to-south pipelines to deliver incremental gas out of the Haynesville have been clouded by legal challenges. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll discuss the reasons for the disputes, what’s been going on recently, and the potential fallout. 

Mexico’s state-owned Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE) and private-sector developers of LNG export terminals have been aggressively advancing new natural gas-consuming projects in Northwest Mexico. But while plans for a number of new pipelines to help bring in gas from the Permian are on the drawing board, it remains to be seen if they can be built as quickly as they would need to be to avert a potentially ugly competition for gas supplies. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the gas-demand and gas-delivery projects now under development in Northwest Mexico. 

Since the mid-2010s, Mexico’s Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE) has developed a massive fleet of natural-gas-fired combined-cycle plants and helped to underwrite the buildout of a far-reaching network of gas pipelines from South Texas and West Texas into and through much of Mexico. Now, there’s a big push to extend that network southeast through the Yucatán Peninsula to serve new power plants and industrial facilities there. The question is, with the vast majority of the pipeline capacity down Mexico’s East Coast already locked up, where will the Yucatán’s incremental gas come from? In today’s RBN blog, we discuss this potential disconnect between Mexico’s gas-related aspirations and reality. 

With all the talk about U.S. LNG exports and plans for more LNG export capacity, it can be easy to forget that more than 6 Bcf/d of U.S. natural gas — mostly from the Permian and the Eagle Ford — is being piped to Mexico. That’s more than 3X the volumes that were being piped south of the border 10 years ago, a tripling made possible by the buildout of new pipelines from the Agua Dulce and Waha hubs to the Rio Grande and, from there, new pipes within Mexico. And where is all that gas headed? Mostly to new gas-fired power plants and industrial facilities — a handful of new LNG export terminals being planned on that side of the border will only add to the demand. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the ever-increasing flows of gas to Mexico and the tens of billions of dollars of new infrastructure making it all possible. 

New England is hell-bent on decarbonizing quickly, and it’s been making some progress. But like it or not, the region still depends heavily on natural gas for both power generation and space heating, and gas supplies are stretched to the limit during periods of extreme winter demand. Worse yet, the Everett LNG import terminal, which for years has fed a big, soon-to-close gas-fired power station and supported the Boston area’s gas grid, may be on the verge of shutting down. Well, help may finally be on the way. Enbridge recently proposed an expansion to its 3-Bcf/d Algonquin Gas Transmission pipeline system. The question is, can it get built in a region notorious for its opposition to energy infrastructure projects? In today’s RBN blog, we discuss Enbridge’s Project Maple and the role it could play in New England’s aggressive plan to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Tallgrass Energy last month snagged an early Christmas present: It won a bid for Ruby Pipeline, the beleaguered Rockies-to-West Coast natural gas system that has long been underutilized and cash-poor. In doing so, it beat out one of the largest midstream companies in North America and a long-time co-owner of Ruby — Kinder Morgan. Ruby may be a languishing asset, but for Tallgrass it’s more like a crown jewel in its quest to be the only transcontinental header system in the country that would connect trapped Appalachian gas supply with premium West Coast markets. Tallgrass’s Rockies Express (REX) pipeline is already moving Marcellus/Utica molecules west to the Rockies — the opposite direction than it was originally built for in the pre-Shale Era. The Ruby acquisition, which has yet to close, would allow Tallgrass to extend its reach farther west, directly into the premium West Coast markets. The Ruby deal comes at a time when California’s aggressive decarbonization goals are leading to gas shortages and exorbitant fuel premiums out west, and there’s an immediate need to debottleneck routes to get gas there. In today’s RBN blog, we begin a series delving into how Ruby fits into the Western U.S. gas market and what the acquisition would mean for Tallgrass.