The CEO of Enbridge Energy last week said the slump in oil prices won’t affect the company’s ambitious pipeline construction plans, especially those in Minnesota. The company is upgrading two oil pipelines and has proposed the 600-mile Sandpiper project. They are all part of the company’s five-year, $44 billion building program.
“The amount of production that is coming on to our system and the amount of production we forecast from the oil sands or the Bakken is actually well in excess of the capacity we have on our system,” said CEO Al Monaco, whose company operates the world’s longest crude oil pipeline system and has major operations in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
More: Star Tribune
Ash Spill Cost Duke CEO $600,000 in Incentives
Duke Energy CEO Lynn Good earned about $600,000 less than she could have last year, primarily because the Dan River coal ash spill cut her short-term incentive payment from $1.7 million to $1.1 million. But Good had a good year anyway as, according to securities filings, her total compensation worked out to $8.4 million. She earned $6.4 million the year before, when she was the company’s chief financial officer. Good was named CEO in the middle of 2013.
More: The Charlotte Observer
Dominion Sells Carolina Gas to its Own Midstream Partners Subsidiary
Dominion Resources sold its ownership of Carolina Gas Transmission to its Dominion Midstream Partners subsidiary for $495 million, the company announced last week. Dominion bought Carolina Gas, which owns and operates about 1,500 miles of natural gas pipelines in South Carolina and Georgia, for $493 million in December.
Dominion Midstream is the corporation’s holding company for its natural gas transmission, storage and export business, which includes the under-construction Cove Point liquefied natural gas export facility on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.
More: Richmond Times-Dispatch
FERC Approves NextEra’s Acquisition of Hawaiian Electric
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has approved NextEra Energy’s proposed $4.3 billion acquisition of Hawaiian Electric, but the Juno, Fla.-based company still needs several more approvals to close the deal. The Hawaii Public Service Commission has set a deadline of Aug. 31 to finish hearings and issue a ruling. Several interveners, including the state’s Consumer Advocate, SunEdison and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, have asked that the deadline be extended to Oct. 30. If granted, the extension could push back complete approval of the acquisition into next year.
More: Pacific Business News
NuScale Power Unveils Mock-Up of Small Modular Reactor
NuScale Power has finished constructing the full-scale mock-up of it modular reactor design, one of the final steps before it submits the entire design to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for approval next year. The Portland, Ore.-based firm said it will be submitting its 12,000-page design application to the NRC in 2016, starting a three-year design review process. NuScale’s design is for small, 50-MW modules that could be joined in as many as 12 units to produce a 600-MW plant. Instead of being constructed on-site, the modules would be built in a factory and shipped to the plant site. NuScale is backed by Fluor Corp. and the Department of Energy.
More: Portland Business Journal
Compiled by Ted Caddell