During September 4th, News Conference in Ankara, Chief Executive Officer Peter Voser stated “Royal Dutch Shell PLC is assessing opportunities for shale natural gas exploration and production in the Black Sea area with Turkish State-owned Oil firms from TPAO.”
In November of 2011, TPAO signed an accord with shell in regards to exploration and production in the Mediterranean Sea as well as Southeastern Turkey.
In result, TPAO wo
ld take 70% share of production near Diyarbakir with shell taking the test, the agreement contained the plans for the shale gas exploration route to, Southeastern City of Diyarbakir.
http://www.ogj.com/content/ogj/en/articles/2012/09/shell-considering-shale-gas-exploration-production-in-turkey.html
Map of the Republic of Turkey (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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Size and weight do matter with NeSSI. Because our plan is to get the pneumatic equipment by-line (i.e., next to the sampling point), it's important that a system is small and light so that service can be done on a replacement basis. Today we have the ability to fabricate modular miniature systems that should be able to be assembled Lego-style by an unskilled person.
Yet in many cases we build modular systems that haven't been optimized for space or still require custom tubing work. We should aim to tightly integrate the modular system with its enclosure, to reduce size and weight, as well as eliminate custom tubing. Use of graphical indication of the flow paths certainly will overcome reluctance to use a densely populated sampling system.
Sample system design methodology. Software configurator tools available for designing NeSSI systems ultimately will expand to include the heaters, the microclimate enclosure, the wiring interconnections and the applets specified for the SAM. These tools will allow an end user to do a rapid detail design of a sample system based on company best practice and generate a detailed bill of materials and estimate.
Because the NeSSI bus is intrinsically safe, use of pre-certified components allows us to virtually self-certify our system as an entity regardless of where in the world the system is installed. The assembler or integrator now will be able to validate the automated performance and operation of the sample system as part of the check-out procedure by enabling self-checking routines available in the SAM. Contrast that to current designs where much of the detailed design is farmed out and systems are mainly checked only for mechanical operation.
Stream switching norms. For sample and calibration/validation fluid switching, we often use double-block-and-bleed stream-switching valves with bubbler systems to indicate a leak. This mandates maintenance rounds to regularly check if there's a leak at the bubbler. Use of miniature, modular close-coupled systems minimizes upswept voids; the need for double-block-and-bleed valves to reduce dead volume all of sudden becomes less important. Another reason for multiple valves has been to compensate for leaky valves that were standard fare in the "bad old days."
Early stream-select valves were ball valves with poor seating later followed by explosion-proof solenoid valves that probably were even worse. Today we have better valves (see "Streamline Your Sampling System,"
And if they leak smart flow and pressure sensors can monitor valve performance. Use of close-coupled systems and smart sensors allows us to simplify our systems and reduce size and costs by minimizing the need for double-block-and-bleed stream-switching hardware. This also frees us from the burden of providing visual indications of leakage.
Rotameter Replacement: NeSSI-bus-enabled
unit can sense fluid flow, pressure and temperature,
and serve in Division 1/Zone 1 areas.
Photo courtesy of Circor.
Use of visual indication devices such as rotameters and pressure gauges. We're addicted to their usage because we've felt a need to "see" the process fluid. However, as glass rotameters have given way to armored versions with magnetically coupled indicators, what we're getting now is an inferential view of the flow. The new NeSSI-bus-compliant flow devices can transmit flow or pressure signals.
If you have a signal that's available on a graphical user interface you really don't need an indicator. Maybe it's time to remove the windows from our sample system enclosures and get a smaller transmitter in their place. Eliminating the rotameter also does away with an aggravating position constraint that dictates vertical positioning of the sample system.
Use of manual flow and pressure regulators. A rotameter generally comes with a needle valve, allowing manual flow adjustment by analyzer technicians. So, how can we adjust flow without a rotameter? Work is underway to supply a proportional valve coupled to a flow or pressure transmitter to give a real control loop on the sample system. This will allow us to monitor the flow using proportional-integral-derivative (PID) control and also input a set point.
Consider the great strides gas chromatograph manufacturers have made with carrier-gas pressure controls. The days of matching flows using needle valves are history. Thankfully needle valves used in the majority of process gas chromatographs have been consigned to the obsolete parts bin.
Shows a NeSSI-bus-enabled valve control module for actuating sample-system pneumatic valves as well as a NeSSI-bus-enabled pressure/temperature transmitter. The module is rated Division 1/Zone 1 and so can be mounted inside a sample system enclosure. When used with a gas chromatograph it can obviate separate pneumatic tubes between the chromatograph and the sample system. A single cable connection links the gas chromatograph to the valve control module.
About the Author:
nb-sm.net is engineered for high performance,In addition to pioneering design, high-impact technology, and durability, our Pneumatic means customer value.you can buy Pneumatic from us.
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Extraction of Crude oil is a process where the oil is removed from the undersurface by drilling oil wells and bringing the oil to the surface. It is then transported to the oil refinery by pipeline, ship or a truck. Oil refineries are usually located near rivers or other water bodies due to the usage of cooling water. The unprocessed fossil fuel needs to be refined and converted into a usable form for the final consumption. The fossil fuel industry is classified into various sectors or categories such as upstream, midstream and downstream. Exploration of Crude oil and drilling can be termed as upstream. Hence, this sector is known as exploration and production (E&P) sector.
The Determination of supply is done by the upstream industry, which is of utmost importance as it affects the prices in the downstream industry. The demand for oil is the main concern of the downstream and midstream sectors. Refining of Crude oil, selling and distributing the various end products such as asphalt, synthetic, rubber, plastics etc are the major activities of the downstream sector. Advancement in technology plays a major role in the exploration and extraction of Crude oil in the upstream industry. The seismic surveys and various instruments help in detecting the oil reservoirs. Once the reservoir is located, the density is determined by sending radio waves into the earth's surface. A three dimensional seismic imaging is used to send the radio waves. From the data obtained by the seismic models, scientists determine the reservoir size.
The companies in the upstream sector should devise a plan to forecast the demand and calculate the rate of extraction so that the reserves don't go dry. Based on the amount of Crude oil explored and extracted, the amount of oil that can be processed is determined. A hole is drilled to make oil bore wells and a steel pipe is fitted into the hole, after which a collection of valves is mounted on top. In some geographical locations, the oil comes naturally to the earth's surface. Various huge pipes and vessels are used in the refinery to separate the hydrocarbons from the Crude oil. The oil refinery is operated by highly automated control rooms. The most common process units found in a refinery are Desalter, Catalytic reformer, hydrocracker, coking etc.
Fractional distillation is a process where, at different boiling points, the hydrocarbons contained in the Crude oil are broken down into fractions. Various heating furnaces are used for the fractional distillation of Crude oil. The distillation tower holds the heavier fractions at the bottom and those in the lighter form, in gaseous state gets settled at the top inside the distillation tower. A network of reactors and huge burning furnaces are used to crack heavy hydrocarbon molecules into lighter fractions. Cat cracking or catalytic cracking is where intense heat and a material that speeds up the chemical reaction are used in the cracking process. Purifying and blending are the major processes when it comes to refining. The fractions are made to cool and then they are blended to make products such as gasoline, heating oil, diesel oil, kerosene, plastics, jet fuel etc.
About the Author:
For more information and details of How and Why to Invest in Oil, safe Investments through Oil ETFs, Crude Oil Prices, Oil Price trends,
Extraction of Oil, do visit our site - http://www.oilprices.org/
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Pipeline Ball Valves are manufactured and tested in accordance with the requirements of API 6D, and are designed not to rely on lubricant to ensure that they seal.
During manufacture and factory testing, the use of lubricants and/or sealants is prohibited. This is to prevent masking of any defects in the new valve.
Installation and commissioning into a pipeline is an interventive engineering process, making use of hot and cold working techniques relying on mechanical tooling. As a result it is inevitable that between valve installation and commissioning, an amount of foreign debris will enter the valve (i.e. sand / dirt / swarf / weld slag). This is a natural result of the manufacturing process that cannot be avoided.
Once installed the valve is usually cycled during the testing of its gearbox or actuator, and again during hydrostatic testing of the pipeline.
These activities create tiny scratches on the polished ball surface where the debris present in the line wears on the ball and seat during the cycling of the valve.
In time, this reduces the valves ability to provide an adequate seal, as these tiny scratches begin to cause minor leak paths. All fluid and gas flows contain an element of contaminant which contributes to this effect over the life of the valve.
Minor leak paths that seal at low pressure become obvious when using the valve to isolate high pressure gas. Seating material is often softer than the ball itself in order to provide a pliable material which takes up minor leak paths, but at higher pressures the gas compresses the seats and they become less pliable meaning that the minor leak paths become more significant at higher pressures.
This type of damage mechanism can also be said to be true for gate and plug valves, as gate and plug surfaces are also susceptible to the similar damage. In fact any sealing surface subject to mechanical friction is susceptible to the damage mechanism described above.
Lubricants, lubricant-sealants and emergency-sealants
Lubricants help clean valve internals, and reduce operating torque. Valvecare use a light lubricant called Equa-Lube Eighty from Sealweld immediately after hydrostatic testing of valve, to purge all test water from seat pockets where corrosion normally occurs. The advantage of this is that it removes as much debris as possible from the internal mechanism of the valve, thus reducing the chance for wear. Lubrication also reduces the friction between the wearing surfaces. Of course, new contaminant can be introduced at any time via the flow in the pipeline.
Lubricant-Sealants help to preserve seat sealing effectiveness, and to seal worn valves with minor leakage problems. Valvecare use a lubricant-sealant called Total-Lube # 911 from Sealweld, this has been proven to seal minor scratches to sealing surfaces and shallow corrosion pits, as well as small nicks and cuts on soft seals.
For valves with sealing surface scoring, this is an effective way to achieve a bubble tight seal on a valve that would otherwise fail a leak test. Use of lubricant-sealants can delay or prevent the need for costly overhaul of a worn valve.
Emergency Sealants provide an effective temporary means of creating of leak tight seal, even on valves with severe leakage problems. Valve sealing plays an important role, when performing pipeline repair, modification or renewal work, as often the costs of shutting down, evacuating, draining, and excavating pipeline equipment are typically many times more than just the cost of a new valve. Valvecare use a Valve Sealant called Ball Valve Sealant #5050 from Sealweld, containing particles of PTFE, and is capable of sealing relatively large scratches to sealing surfaces.
Lubrication
Lubrication is introduced into the valve, using the seat injection fittings. Valves that do not have seat injections fittings can usually be retrofitted to include these. Specialist valve maintenance companies, such as Valvecare, can advise you on specifics for individual valves.
Seat lubrication, is a proven means of cleaning foreign debris from valve seats, and done properly as part of a scheduled valve maintenance programme, stops debris from getting there in the first place. This practice significantly reduces damage suffered during installation, commissioning and normal cycling operation, extending the service life of the valve dramatically. The costs associated with a scheduled maintenance program including lubrication are considerably lower than a full overhaul or replacement of the valve itself.
Lubricating your valves gives the following operational advantages:
- Cleans their seats of potentially damaging particles (Sand / Dirt / Swarf / weld slag)
- Stops debris from getting stuck between seats if administered before pigging pipeline
- Prevents and removes stiction (Torque to operate reduced / less strain on stem and actuator)
- Preserves the life of their seals, and components against mechanical and corrosion damage
These advantages reduce operational cost and should therefore form part of your planned valve maintenance programme.
Sealing
Emergency Sealing involves the introduction of heavy sealant, through the valve seat injection fittings, to achieve a temporary seal. Valves that do not have seat injections fittings can usually be retrofitted to include these. Specialist valve maintenance companies, such as Valvecare, can advise you on specifics for individual valves.
Emergency Sealing your valves:
Provides an temporary bubble tight seal, even on valves with severe leakage problems
Has significant cost savings, when compared to alternatives
Saves time, with lead times for some replacement pipeline valves taking several months
The Lubrication, lubricant-Sealant and Emergency Sealant process involves the use of specialist equipment, capable of pumping a range of lubrication and sealant types safely at pressures of 10,000–15,000 psi. It is recommended that trained valve service engineers, proficient in the safe use of sealant guns and pumps, carry out this procedure.
Important Considerations
Lubrication and sealing becomes more critical in applications such as Natural Gas, Production Wellheads, Gathering Systems, Gas processing Plants, Pipelines, Gas Storage Facilities and Gas Distribution Systems. Applications like these are more likely to cause damage to the critical sealing surfaces of valves, due to the lack of lubrication present in dry gas, and the presence of sand and debris in production wellheads. As part of a valve maintenance programme, preventative valve maintenance helps minimises the adverse effects of these services, increasing the service life of your valves.
For increased valve service life, the presence of an emergency seat sealant injection feature is an important consideration when procuring pipeline valve stock.
Equally as important is the choice of injection fittings and/or adaptors that are installed on the valve. Sealant injection fittings feature a means of passing sealant or lubricant into the valve, and incorporate a high pressure metal seated check valve. As a safety precaution, Valvecare do not endorse the use of carbon steel, crimped style injection fittings. As standard, we only recommend the use quality stainless steel injection fittings incorporating a threaded spring retaining cage, in order to minimise the risk of dangerous fitting failure.
Valve lubrication and sealing is an essential part of an effectively managed valve maintenance programme. Once installed and lubricated, a regular documented lubrication schedule should be established for all critical valves. Valvecare specialise in a supplying a total management programme for your valves, with a focus on the criticality of valves in relation to impact on safety elements and production, maintenance routines, spares holding, valve tracking and selection procedures. This type of valve management programme is a highly effective way of optimising reliability and safety whilst minimising cost and downtime.
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Created in 1898, ASTM International has become one of the largest voluntary standards developing, not-for-profit organizations in the world. ASTM provides a forum for the development and publication of voluntary consensus standards for materials, products, systems, and services from its members. The members of ASTM represent producers, users, consumers, government, and academia from over 100 countries and are responsible for the development of technical documents that are the basis for manufacturing, management, procurement, codes, and regulations.
What is a standard?
As used in ASTM, a standard is a document that has been developed and established within the consensus principles of the organization and which meets the requirements of ASTM procedures and regulations. Full consensus standards are developed with the participation of all parties who have a stake in the standards’ development and/or use.
How and where are ASTM standards used?
ASTM standards are used by individuals, companies, and agencies around the world. Purchasers and sellers incorporate standards into contracts; scientists and engineers use them in their laboratories and offices; architects and designers use them in their plans; government agencies around the world reference them in codes, regulations, and laws; and many others refer to them for guidance.
For more information on ASTM, go to www.gvcintl.com and click on the ASTM hyperlink.
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Making Use of Steel Ball Valves
When it comes to infrastructure, we can really name a lot of companies which are getting into it and one of the most in demand services anywhere today is plumbing. Without plumbing, people would always have a ruin day due to an inadequacy of water. More than that, when we are also going to talk about plumbing, we also need to consider the things that they mostly use and one of which are those valves that are useful in order to make a job successful. If you are among the plumbers, you will surely look for the most durable and top-quality kind of valve, and in such case, the use of steel ball valves should be taken account.
There are now plenty of manufacturing companies who had study hard in order to make the best valve to use in any sorts of plumbing activity and good thing was, Global Valve and Controls had able to establish the perfect valve to be used in any sorts of plumbing constructions. Steel ball valves are among their recent valves being made which has been establish through the finest technological method and had able to pass various evaluations from experts as well. With these steel ball valves, you can really have the guarantee that this would last long despite the fact that it is being use constantly.
Global Valve and Controls had undergone careful study in order to perfectly design the right valves to be use in all sorts of plumbing construction. GVC’s have their own technical support team who see to it that all steel ball valves are of top quality and will even provide you with best function. You can now start buying these steel ball valves since these are now available in all markets in your place.
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"Keystone XL has been under review since 2008 and we are confident we have addressed the major questions raised by regulators and government agencies," says Russ Girling, TransCanada's president and chief executive. "We expect a final regulatory decision for this project by late 2011 and we are pleased the Department of State has committed it will conclude its review of Keystone XL by the end of the year. The Keystone expansion is expected to be operational in 2013."
Since 2008, TransCanada has held more than 90 open houses and public meetings along the pipeline route; given hundreds of hours of testimony to local, state and federal officials and submitted thousands of pages of information to government agencies in response to questions. The Department of State concluded in the spring of 2010 that Keystone XL would have limited impact on the environment during construction and operation.
"A growing number of opinion leaders, elected officials, labour unions, associations and members of the public are showing their support for Keystone XL," adds Girling. "Instability and unrest in Libya and other parts of the Middle East demonstrate the need for the U.S. to receive a safe, secure, stable supply of oil--Keystone XL will provide that. The project will help put America back to work, creating 20,000 jobs and injecting billions into the U.S. economy."
The U.S. Department of Energy stated in a recent study that "increased Canadian oil imports will help reduce U.S. imports of foreign oil from sources outside of North America." This supports TransCanada's point that we can reduce America's dependence on oil from Venezuela and the Middle East by up to 40 percent with the Keystone XL pipeline. As the American GI Forum of Texas recently pointed out, the oil that the Keystone system will deliver is "conflict free."
The study also confirmed that the construction of Keystone XL would not change global refinery carbon dioxide or total life cycle greenhouse gas emissions. Earlier analysis by The Perryman Group out of Texas regarding the economic benefits of the project concluded that:
•More than $585 million in new taxes will go to the states and communities along the pipeline route
•An additional $5.2 billion in property taxes will be paid over the operating life of the pipeline
•More than $6.5 billion in personal income will go to Americans
•U.S.-based producers will have new options to move crude oil to American refineries.
"Keystone XL is a shovel-ready project that is funded completely by private sector investment at no cost to American taxpayers," concluds Girling. "It will be a safe, modern and leading-edge pipeline and we have provided the Department of State and other agencies with the facts regarding Keystone XL's design, safety, operating procedures and limited environmental impact."
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Editor’s Note: This is the fourth in a multi-part series examining the fundamentals behind the structural transformation of the U.S. oil markets and the downstream logistics challenges that are resulting. The third installment covered the “disconnect” between inland crudes priced off Cushing crude values when the North American oil hub is flush with crude in storage. (Image Source: CN)
As geopolitical turmoil drives crude prices skyward and lifts retail gasoline to US$4.89 per gallon (/gal) in cities like Los Angeles, it’s anything but business as usual in the U.S. oil patch.
Inland producers who are left in the dust amid triple-digit waterborne crude prices on most every U.S. coast are pioneering inventive downstream logistics to ship crude at low cost to higher-priced markets – thereby avoiding the disconnect in the wild west of North America’s oil industry.
Nearly every multimodal logistics opportunity short of yesteryear’s Pony Express and today’s Federal Express is being considered to cost-effectively ship crude oil to profit from high-price spreads between landlocked and waterborne crudes.
In intra-day trading on March 2, a remarkable spread was logged as the West Canadian Select (WCS) grade saw discount pricing around $80.00 per barrel (/ bbl), while both Heavy Louisiana Sweet and Light Louisiana Sweet (HLS and LLS) crudes on the Gulf Coast traded at more than $122.00/bbl.
That astounding discount of more than $40.00/bbl represents 50% of the then current WCS value. The basis differential can partly be explained by crude quality, but these theoretically, wide-open arbitrage opportunities attract pioneering innovators like the land rush days of old.
Furthermore, the $19.70/bbl discount to LLS prices that day for 38 million barrels of crude stored inland at Cushing at the time represented $750 million in dollar terms.
In the void left by insufficient pipeline takeaway capacity, tankers are stepping in to ship crude via rail and inland waterways away from the heavily utilized and smaller Mid-Continent refining fleet toward a Gulf Coast refining fleet twice its size.
Canadian Railway Company Rides the Rails to the Rescue?
Canadian National Railway Co. (CN), based in Montreal, Quebec, has pioneered and trademarked, PipelineOnRail – described as an “economically sound, surprisingly fast way to ship crude oil products within Alberta to the rest of Canada, the U.S. Midwest, the Gulf coast and other export markets.”
The plan seeks to use its extensive North American rail system that already traverses the Canadian continent on an East-West axis to tank crude south along its interconnected rail spine spanning the U.S. down the Mississippi River valley all the way to and around the U.S. Gulf Coast.
On March 1, Hart Energy contacted CN’s Kelli Svendsen, senior manager of regional public and government affairs, and learned that “CN has been testing concepts to move crude (heavy, light, and pure bitumen) from areas in Western Canada to various markets in the U.S.”
Svendsen said two areas of Canada are already exporting crude oil to the U.S: “CN has moved pure bitumen from Fort McMurray to U.S. markets,” and “from the Bakken reserves in Saskatchewan (Canada) to the U.S.”
The Bakken effort began recently with shipments “in October 2010.” Svendsen said, adding that “CN is optimistic that rail will play an increasing role in the transport of crude moving forward.”
EnSys Study Documents Crude-by-Rail Potential
EnSys Energy noted in a December 2010 North American crude logistics assessment that “CN Rail currently imports condensate, for blending with oil-sands bitumen to make DilBit (a.k.a. diluted bitumen)” from the Kitimat Port on Canada’s west coast.
According to EnSys, the “PipelineOnRail … avoids the large, fixed investments associated with major pipelines.” EnSys also noted that CN indicates potential capacity to move “as many as 200,000 b/d or more.”
EnSys said the study did not allow for the expansion of the PipelineOnRail capacity in any scenario, because tariffs for rail are generally not considered attractive relative to pipelines.
“However, during a period of constrained pipeline capacity, the PipelineOnRail could compete as an alternative,” the assessment reads.
Pioneers on the U.S. Side of the Border
The Bakken petroleum that CN is shipping originates from a producing region that extends into the U.S. states of North Dakota and Montana. Drillers in North Dakota produce the area’s greatest share of petroleum using unconventional hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling techniques.
Justin Kringstad, director of the North Dakota Pipeline Authority (PA), wrote in a September 10, 2010, release: “Because of our distance to market, regional producers have always absorbed a per-barrel discount on production.” Yet he noted that recent increases in rail and pipeline “takeaway capacity has pared that discount down substantially.”
Kringstad tabulated new capacity for crude oil shipments from several takeaway projects, including new rail-loading terminals in the area. These include EOG Resource’s 65,000-b/d rail facility in Stanley, N.D., which began rail tanker shipments to Cushing, Okla., in December 2009.
Hart contacted EOG spokesperson K. Leonard on March 1, who shared that “EOG is currently utilizing five trains, with plans to add a sixth in the future.” Leonard said EOG leases the rail tankers it uses to ship crude.
“The company typically loads one train daily and regularly hauls 68,000 gross barrels of crude per train,” Leonard said, adding that “Each train has approximately 100 cars.”
North Dakota PA’s Kringstad further noted in his release that Hess Corp. is readying a $48-million, 60,000 b/d rail facility in Tioga, N.D., for an early-2012 start-up. His post also said that Dakota Transport Solutions began shipping crude from New Town, N.D., to St. James, La., in August 2010. Kringstad said that facility reportedly had the capacity to transport 20,000 b/d by the end of 2010.
Kringstad also noted that smaller rail facilities operate with an estimated combined capacity of 30,000 b/d and include North Dakota locations in Minot, Dore, Donnybrook and Stampede.
Rangeland Energy LLC a New Pioneer
Rangeland Energy LLC (Rangeland), based in Sugar Land, Texas, has also announced plans that would enable Bakken producers to ship crude by rail tanker to the U.S. Gulf Coast.
On March 1, Hart spoke with Chris Keene, Rangeland president and CEO, and learned the company is developing the “COLT” rail terminal hub or connector to ship 100 rail tankers daily (60,000 b/d) of Bakken crude via the BNSF Railway Company to points including the Gulf Coast.
Keene said his company was formed in 2009 and noted: “It’s a huge opportunity, and I think our facility that we are building will be extremely valuable to the industry. It’s been great.”
“There are new rail tank cars being built as we speak. As fast as they can build them, they are being leased. In fact, they are being leased before they build them. Tank car makers, Keene said, have a huge backlog at present – driven by this trend.
Although Keene would not name names, Hart learned that Dallas-based Trinity Industries, Inc., and Oregon-based The Greenbriar Companies, manufacture multi-modal tankers for rail, barge and/or land transport. A review of company disclosures suggested a confirmation of strong backlogs in tanker manufacturers.
The new rail tankers “are coming on because you have a huge demand that has grown not only in North Dakota but also in the Eagle Ford,” Keene added.
Shippers also “are doing whatever they can using existing fleets … a refiner that has an existing fleet of rail cars that maybe they were moving refined products. They convert them and move crude oil,” according to Keene.
“We have not looked at rail into Canada although we have talked with the folks working Saskatchewan’s Bakken trend. Everything we have looked at doing is in and around Williams County in North Dakota where we will be building,” Keene noted. “But certainly the opportunity exists wherever there is existing infrastructure, rail infrastructure, there is an opportunity to do manifest or unit trains.
“Currently, we have a huge draw to get it to the Gulf Coast, into the LLS market,” he said, but “non-traditional” markets for inland crude could soon take the rising flows shipped by rail tanker from Bakken and Eagle Ford producers. “Bakken crude is going to California at Bakersfield right now, by manifest trains, a few cars at a time.”
Keene further mused about the potential for Eagle Ford to flood the Gulf Coast, saying that this could back crude up at Cushing and further back in the Bakken.
“Now you have this rush of light, sweet crude coming on the market; where is it going to go? It’s an interesting story,” Keene said. “It will be interesting to see which refiners run it given that a lot of these refiners just a couple years ago were converting to run heavy, sour crude with investments of billions of dollars.”
Musket Trading Makes The Connection
On March 1, Hart Energy also contacted Oklahoma-based Musket Trading and spoke to Dan House, managing director of crude oil. House said the shifting North American oil industry landscape has “been pretty active as far as the changes that are going on. That creates opportunity, so it’s a good place for us.”
Musket owns and operates rail-served terminals; maintains some 2,000 railcars; provides shipment logistics in 39 states and Canada; and distributes crude oil and other commodities via more than 20,000 railcars annually. That includes crude from the Bakken region to the U.S. Gulf Coast.
House confirmed that rail shipments of Canadian crude are increasingly being talked about and occurring in small batches. “We have done a small amount of it, and I know there are a lot of people looking at it in a bigger way recently,” House said.
Regarding Eagle Ford production, House said producers there yield “a lot more condensate type material that will be railed out of the Eagle Ford. The crude seems to have a good local market, but the condensate volumes that they are talking about do not seem to have a natural home down there.”
Hart also asked House if the Eagle Ford condensate could be sent northward to Alberta’s bitumen producers for use as diluent instead of importing it at Kitimat and shipping it by CN rails to Alberta. House agreed that this opportunity is “most likely” and “that’s where we are seeing it make sense.”
Kirby Inland – Heavy Oil to Crude Tanker?
To obtain the waterborne tank barge perspective, Hart Energy spoke with Steve Holcomb, communications officer for Kirby Corp. in Houston – among the largest inland waterway shippers in the U.S.
According to Holcomb: “We carry very little crude oil. We’ve had a lot of inquiries into it, but they have got to get the product to the Mississippi River or the Arkansas River. So it’s a logistics problem of getting the crude to a river system that is navigable.”
When asked about CN’s rail plan, Holcomb said: “A tank barge would be much more economical way to move it than rail cars. But then, of course, you have to have access to [load the crude] on a viable waterway.”
“Our utilization is pretty high, so we don’t have a lot of barges available, but the industry may have some available … If you move refined products in a barge and you switch it over to crude service, then you have a significant cost of cleaning that barge. You cannot carry a petroleum product upriver and bring crude oil back.
“That doesn’t work. It must be dedicated,” Holcomb said, or the shipper could incur something like “$50,000 to $60,000 to clean it.” That cleaning cost could be justifiable, Holcomb said, if spread-over barrels shipped over a lengthy lease commitment.
“If it’s moved in a black oil barge, it’s a little different. We have 112 black oil barges out of our total fleet of 825,” Holcomb told Hart, noting that such costly cleaning procedures would be unnecessary.
Hart noted the EnSys stance that “rail linked in to barge (or tanker) could also play a role in the transport market. Small volumes of WCSB crudes are currently arriving in the Gulf Coast in part via barge.”
Holcomb offered assurance that “Somebody will figure it out before long. If it involves inland tank barges, Kirby will benefit, because it will tighten up the inland barge market. Barge availability will be much less than what it is today, and rates will begin to escalate.”
According to Holcomb, several other black oil barge firms provide similar services. If Hart Energy makes headway on researching those, they will be covered in a future segment of Hart Energy’s Oil’s Changing Landscape special series.
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Frank Nieto | March 11, 2011
Just how significant has the Marcellus shale been in increasing the production of natural gas in the Northeast? That’s the question that the Midstream Monitor decided to answer in our first Spotlight feature.
Using data supplied by Hart Energy’s Mapping & GIS division, Midstream Monitor found that production out of the Marcellus region rose from 62.25 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) on January 1, 2008 just before the region became hot to 3.19 Bcf/d on December 31, 2010 after production had taken off in the region.
While there have been dips in these production figures during this two-year period, by and large production has gone from strength-to-strength with production peaking on December 24, 2010 at 3.24 Bcf/d.
It is important to note that these figures do not represent the Marcellus shale alone, only receipt figures from gathering systems in the region. These pipe flows do not necessarily represent actual wellhead production.
“Production out of the Marcellus shale is currently approximately 1.3 Bcf/d and should exit the year by jumping over the 2 Bcf/d hurdle,” Opoku Danquah, director of upstream research for Hart Energy, said.
While gas prices remain weak, the Marcellus shale represents a premium market for producers due to its proximity to lucrative markets in the Northeast. However, this location also presents a problem for producers – namely being able to get these volumes to market.
This has turned out to be a boon for midstream operators, who are in the midst of building up the region with much needed infrastructure. The biggest projects attached to the Marcellus from a midstream perspective are, of course, pipelines with companies such as Williams, Spectra, El Paso, Kinder Morgan and EQT building new pipelines, as well as laterals to existing pipelines.
However, there are also strong opportunities for natural gas processing plants since the states that make up the play are among the lowest in terms of processing capacity. Because of this processing shortage in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, we’ve already seen several plants in each state brought online or announced so far this year.
In January, Caiman Energy brought the 120 MMcf/d Ft. Beeler cryogenic plant online in Cameron, West Virginia and that same month MarkWest Liberty Midstream & Resources announced it will build its third natural gas processing plant in the play when it constructs a 120 MMcf/d cryogenic plant in Logansport, W. Va., by mid-2012. This will be MarkWest Liberty’s third plant in the play. – Frank Nieto
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Making Use of Steel Ball Valves
When it comes to infrastructure, we can really name a lot of companies which are getting into it and one of the most in demand services anywhere today is plumbing. Without plumbing, people would always have a ruin day due to an inadequacy of water. More than that, when we are also going to talk about plumbing, we also need to consider the things that they mostly use and one of which are those valves that are useful in order to make a job successful. If you are among the plumbers, you will surely look for the most durable and top-quality kind of valve, and in such case, the use of steel ball valves should be taken account.
There are now plenty of manufacturing companies who had study hard in order to make the best valve to use in any sorts of plumbing activity and good thing was, Global Valve and Controls had able to establish the perfect valve to be used in any sorts of plumbing constructions. Steel ball valves are among their recent valves being made which has been establish through the finest technological method and had able to pass various evaluations from experts as well. With these steel ball valves, you can really have the guarantee that this would last long despite the fact that it is being use constantly.
Global Valve and Controls had undergone careful study in order to perfectly design the right valves to be use in all sorts of plumbing construction. GVC’s have their own technical support team who see to it that all steel ball valves are of top quality and will even provide you with best function. You can now start buying these steel ball valves since these are now available in all markets in your place.
