-Dow Chemical announced today it completed and commissioned a new propane dehydration (PDH) unit at its Freeport, Texas, site. Analysts believe the startup of new PDH units under construction will booth on-purpose propylene production above 30% of North American output by 2020. Enterprise Products Partners and Formosa Plastics also have PDH projects in the works.
-EQT Midstream Partners will build a $250 million natural gas header pipeline to support Range Resources’ production in the Marcellus and Utica shale regions. The 32-mile pipeline will provide more than 500 million cubic feet per day of capacity. EQT plans to complete it in two phases, with phase one starting up by the third quarter of 2016 and phase two by the middle of 2017.
-Orders for railroad tank cars were down 70% year-over-year in the second quarter of 2015 and 29% lower than the first quarter of this year, according to the Railway Supply Institute. Via the Wall Street Journal, energy shipments via railroad have fallen — carload volume for oil and petroleum products fell 20% year-over-year in the week ending July 18.
-The Obama Administration has approved Shell’s Arctic drilling program, albeit with constraints. Via FuelFix, Shell can only focus on one Chukchi Sea well at a time and it is prohibited from drilling into oil and gas zones 8,000 feet underground until a recently damaged icebreaker vessel returns from repairs. The restrictions may prevent Shell from making the most out of the current open-water exploration season, which ends in late September.
-An analyst at Morgan Stanley said reports that Halliburton and Baker Hughes are facing potential legal hurdles in their $34.6 billion merger bid are “mostly noise.” Via The Fly, the analyst said Halliburton has minimized the risk of antitrust challenges with its “exceptionally diligent” handling of the deal.
