Penn Virginia Resource Partners, L.P., a master limited partnership formed by Penn Virginia to manage coal properties, added to its natural gas midstream business with its acquisition of Transwestern Pipeline's pipeline and compression facilities in Texas and Oklahoma.

Sierra Pacific Resources, operator and 50% owner of Tuscarora Gas Transmission, says it is looking to sell its interest in the 240-mile natural gas pipeline that runs from Malin, Ore., to Reno, Nev.

Enbridge’s planned diluent pipeline is already oversubscribed, but the company will extend the open season on the Chicago-to-Edmonton line to July 14. Enbridge said it would restrict shippers who have contracted for space on the pipeline to 162,000 b/d to preserve room for spot shipments on the pipeline’s planned 180,000 b/d capacity. Committed shippers will be prorated to the aggregate maximum.

Duke Energy plans to separate its natural gas and power businesses into two publicly-traded companies, claiming that each would benefit financially by being pure plays for investors. The move, company officials said, would allow the new gas company to take advantage of the high current valuation of gas assets.“As two market-leading companies, the stand-alone electric and gas business will have increased flexibility to seize expansion opportunities and grow at a higher rate,” said Chairman Paul Anderson. Most potential merger partners are pure play, he added.

Haddington Ventures LLC has closed a $182 million private equity fund to be used for investments in the North American midstream energy industry.Chris Jones, a Haddington principal, told GPR that the firm is actively searching for opportunities with experienced management and a focus on natural gas and liquids pipelines, gathering, processing, storage and treating facilities.

Planned NGL infrastructure expansions in the Rockies may make 2006 seem low tide. At a conference last week sponsored by Wachovia Securities, Enterprise Products Partners provided updates on their projects that show the huge potential of the region.Enterprise says its Rocky Mountain projects will total about $2 billion, and is timing its expansions with anticipated production increases, which industry experts predict will increase by 33%, or by 2.4 billion cfd, by 2010. That would increase regional gas production to 9.7 billion cfd from current estimates of about 7.3 billion cfd.

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ConocoPhillips completed its purchase of 24% of the $4 billion Rockies Express (REX) Pipeline that is to stretch 1,663 miles from the Rocky Mountains to the eastern U.S.The company is to acquire another 1% after the completion of the pipeline which is expected in 2009.

Federal regulators last week filed a civil suit against BP, alleging its North American products group tried to corner the market for physical delivery of propane in the Texas Eastern Products Pipeline storage facility in Mont Belvieu in February 2004. Also included is a charge BP attempted to test the plan in April 2003. The complaint filed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission alleges senior management consented to a speculative trading strategy to establish length, squeeze shorts and produce a profit of at least $20 million. BP wound up with more than 88% of the inventory on TEPPCO that month, the government said.

The U.S. propane spring inventory build was about 6 million bbls short of the five-year average, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported. Between April 1 and June 23, U.S. propane inventories gained about 16.8 million bbls. That is about 27% shy of the 22.9 million bbls usually added during the same time period, EIA said.

ONEOK provided an update on its Overland Pass Pipeline project and its joint venture with Williams last month, but before the announcement that ConocoPhillips would buy a 25% interest (see related story this issue).Overland Pass, a planned 750-mile NGL pipeline from Opal, Wyo. to Conway, Kansas, will link the high-growth Rockies producing areas to fractionation facilities just as existing infrastructure is reaching capacity, said John Gibson, president and COO of ONEOK Partners.

Summer heat appears unevenly distributed, and natural gas prices kept falling, boosting frac spreads yet again last week.

Light, sweet crude gained 3.7% last week for front-month trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, and liquids prices followed along.