-Williams Olefins last week extended its October ethylene force majeure allocation at its Geismar, La., plant, Platts reports. The company said in a letter the earliest date it would resume ethylene production at the Geismar facility would be before the end of November. A source said ethylene supply from the plant is expected after mid-December. When the plant returns it will have boosted ethylene production capacity by 600 million pounds per year to 1.95 billion pounds per year.
-Phillips 66 and Energy Transfer Partners announced the Dec. 1 launch of a binding open season for a crude oil pipeline from Nederland, Texas, to refineries in and around Lake Charles, La., and St. James Parish, La.
-Southcross Energy Partners completed its acquisition of an Eagle Ford natural gas gathering system in McMullen County, Texas. The system includes eight miles of gathering pipelines within two miles of Southcross’ existing rich gas pipeline network.
-Enterprise Products Partners is seeking to sell condensate to Asian buyers in 2015, Bloomberg reports. The company is offering to export 600,000 barrels per month of condensate from the Eagle Ford shale, according to anonymous sources. Enterprise is said to have contracts with Japanese traders Mitsui and Mitsubishi for condensate supply through the end of this year.
-The deepwater Gulf of Mexico is experiencing resurgence more than four years after the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Via the Wall Street Journal, there are roughly a dozen new multibillion-dollar Gulf platforms that are or will be producing oil by the end of next year. In 2013, Gulf oil production as a share of total U.S. production fell below 10%. The waters of the Gulf produced about a quarter of all domestic output in 2001. The new projects have a combined capacity of 900,000 barrels per day.
