Rick Smead is Managing Director, Advisory Services, for RBN Energy LLC. Mr. Smead specializes primarily in energy transportation, regulation and logistics, offering expert policy analysis and advice, regulatory and litigation support (including testimony and other regulatory filings), and strategic advice with respect to pipelines, potential supplies, and market initiatives. His background includes over nine years as a Director with Navigant Consulting, Inc., and over three decades in the energy industry. That experience included over 20 years as the chief regulatory officer for major interstate pipeline systems, with multiple experiences advising non-U.S. governments in the creation of a regulatory structure. His consulting practice has spanned the LNG industry, both project developers for large national oil companies, and the U.S. shale gas boom and its interaction with LNG, the pipeline industry, power generation, and other markets. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Maryland and a law degree from George Washington University.
Posts by Rick Smead
C’mon N’ Ride It – Common-Carrier Rules Shape Liquids Pipelines, But Open Seasons Remain Crucial
Liquids pipelines operate quite differently from their gas-pipeline cousins. They are regulated under a different law than gas pipelines, plus they face broader competition. As a result, they enjoy more flexibility in some respects but less in others than gas systems.
Open Season – Key Step Can Help Gas Pipelines Boost Regulatory Certainty, Limit Court Challenges
Open seasons are a key part of marketing capacity for gas pipeline and storage projects, but they can also raise several regulatory questions. And the answers depend on what kind of open season it is. Today, we take a deep dive into the ins and outs of a gas project open season.
Blankets – FERC Starts a Process to Expand Blanket Gas Pipeline Authorizations
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on applying its “blanket authorization” rules to a lot more gas pipeline projects than in the past. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the proposal and what the planned change would mean for pipeline owners and developers.
Open Season – The Critical Midstream Step That Can Make or Break a Pipeline Project
One of the most discussed and often misunderstood aspects of the midstream world is the pipeline open season. It is how midstreamers go out to the market to test shipper interest and lock in commercial commitments for new projects and can effectively determine whether a project will get built.
Rikki Don’t Lose That Number — ‘311’ Gas Transportation: What Is It, Why Is It, and How Does It Work?
A regulatory topic that had long been very backburner — the so-called “311” transportation of natural gas — is suddenly front and center because it applies to the slew of new, mostly intrastate pipelines that have been built across Texas to get Permian gas to LNG terminals on the Texas and Louisiana coasts.