U.S. BRIEFS

REFINING

HONDO OIL & GAS CO., Roswell, N.M., will temporarily suspend operations at the 30,000 b/d Carson, Calif., refinery operated by its Fletcher Oil & Refining Co. unit until West Coast products markets stabilize. Hondo said operations will remain suspended until margins improve. The refinery will remain for sale (OGJ, Apr. 29, p. 46).

EXXON CHEMICAL CO. let contract to M.W. Kellogg Co., Houston, to provide training, start-up, and follow-up engineering services for worldwide licensing of Exxon's technology for recovering and purifying normal paraffins from kerosine. Exxon's paraffin recovery process uses vapor phase, fixed bed absorption featuring desorption with ammonia. To purify paraffin, Exxon uses liquid phase, fixed bed absorption with a hydrocarbon desorbent that removes aromatics and other impurities.

COGENERATION

DESTEC ENERGY INC., Houston, started up the $60 million McKittrick cogeneration project near Bakersfield, Calif. The plant provides as much as 46,000 kw of power to Pacific Gas & Electric Co. under a 20 year contract and as much as 46,000 lb/hr of steam to Unocal Corp. for use in thermal enhanced oil recovery projects.

PIPELINES

COLUMBIA GAS SYSTEM INC. and its Columbia Gas Transmission Corp. unit received approval from a federal bankruptcy court in Delaware to extend the initial deadline for filing plans of reorganization to Mar. 28, 1992, from the original date of Nov. 28 (OGJ, Aug. 12, p. 41).

KOCH HYDROCARBONS CO., Wichita, Kan., will lay a 583 mile, 12 in., 100,000 b/d products pipeline from Medford, Okla., to Mont Belvieu, Tex., connecting its 170,000 b/d fractionation plant in Medford with petrochemical markets on the Gulf Coast. The line will replace an 8 in., 40,000 b/d line laid in 1981. Added capacity on the new line will be used mainly to transport ethane/propane mix. The old line will be converted to a crude gathering line.

DRILLING-PRODUCTION

ARCO ALASKA INC. chose Fluor Daniel Inc., Irvine, Calif., as prime contractor for the $1.5 billion gas handling expansion project in Prudhoe Bay oil field on Alaska's North Slope (OGJ, Oct. 21, Newsletter), The contract, valued at about $150 million, includes fabrication of 20 gas compression and related modules to be barged to Alaska by summer sealifts in 1993-94 from the fabrication site at New Iberia, La.

ENRON GAS SERVICES, Houston, bought a $15.5 million production payment from Zilkha Energy Co., Houston, in the form of interest in oil reserves and producing leases in five fields in North Louisiana equivalent to about 1 million bbl of crude. Enron also signed a contract to purchase all remaining production from the fields during the term of the production payments. Enron will market and transport the oil delivered under both contracts.

MESA LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, Dallas, plans to drill two wildcats on South Marsh Island Block 155 in the Gulf of Mexico and will spud the first wildcat by yearend. It is programmed to about 11,400 ft to test a fault block on trend with nearby production.

AMERICAN EXPLORER INC., Lafayette, La., 4 CL&F in Turtle Bayou field, Terrebonne Parish, La., flowed 11.36 MMcfd of gas and 132 b/d of condensate with 13,383 psi flowing tubing pressure from middle Miocene Hollywood sand at 13,372-383 ft, confirming the company's 1990 discovery (OGJ, Mar. 4, p. 61). Additional pays were logged at 10,000-12,200 ft. The operator plans further development of its 4,600 acre leasehold in Turtle Bayou and Kent Bayou fields.

DIAMOND SHAMROCK OFFSHORE PARTNERS, Dallas, expects in mid-December to begin producing as much as 11 MMcfd of gas from upper Miocene sands in two wells on Main Pass Block 181 off Louisiana (OGJ, Jan. 14, p. 26). The second well cut about 29 ft of net gas pay. The company, Maxus Energy Corp.'s master limited partnership and owner of 100% interest in the block, is considering more drilling.

EBCO U.S.A. INC., Oklahoma City, will conduct a no minimum bid sale of Fina Oil & Chemical Co. producing leases Dec. 4 in Dallas. A total of 200 leases in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kansas, and other states will be offered.

COMPANIES

EDISTO RESOURCES CORP., Dallas, plans to sell as much as $50 million of oil and gas assets and cut expenses by $3 million in 1992, marking a shift in emphasis to its marketing and transmission segments.

EXPLORATION

AMERICAN NATIONAL PETROLEUM CO., Houston, entered into an exploration and drilling program with Fina Oil & Chemical Co. covering 15,000 acres of fee land held by Fina in Beauregard Parish, La. Fina will provide geophysical and geological data, and ANPC agreed to reprocess about 153 line miles of seismic data and drill at least two wells before July 1, 1993.

FA XIEN Chinese seismic vessel is offering 3-D seismic survey services in the Gulf of Mexico, following installation at Galveston, Tex., of updated digital recording equipment, navigation electronics, and seismic streamers. The vessel is working under charter to Precision Seismic Inc., Oslo, Norway, through terms arranged by Houston SuperComputing Inc.

GAS PROCESSING

MAXUS ENERGY CORP. broke ground for a 160 MMcfd gas processing plant at Sunray in the Texas Panhandle, 12 miles northeast of Dumas. When complete in January 1993, the plant will use cold box technology to strip nitrogen and helium from gas produced in Moore, Sherman, Hansford, Ochiltree, Lipscomb, Hemphill, Roberts, and Hutchinson counties, Tex.

MITCHELL ENERGY & DEVELOPMENT CORP., Woodlands, Tex., increased its interest in a joint venture that owns and operates four gas processing plants and 850 miles of gathering lines in Burleson and Brazos counties in East Central Texas, boosting its natural gas liquids production to a company record 50,000 b/d. In the first half of the current fiscal year, Mitchell's NGL production averaged about 43,000 b/d.

PETROCHEMICALS

OCCIDENTAL CHEMICAL CORP. let contract to Bechtel Corp. for detailed engineering on a modernization of control systems in olefins and butadiene units at its Corpus Christi, Tex., petrochemicals complex. The upgrade will replace discrete analog control systems with a centralized distribution control system. Bechtel's engineering services are to be complete by May 1992. The company also will provide technical assistance during construction.