The US Federal Trade Commission approved a plan for Texas Eastern Products Pipeline Co. LLC (TEPPCO) to acquire the assets of ARCO Pipe Line Co. The ARCO Pipe Line assets include APL's interest in the Seaway crude transportation pipeline from the Texas Gulf Coast to Cushing, Okla.; crude oil terminal facilities in Midland, Tex., and Cushing, including the line transfer and pumpover business at each location; an undivided ownership interest in both the Rancho Pipeline and the Basin Pipeline; and APL's West Texas Trunk System. TEPPCO expects to close the transaction, valued at $318.5 million, by July 20.
The Sofregaz-SN Technigaz-Initec consortium signed a turnkey contract worth more than 200 million euros with Bahia Gas for construction of an LNG import and regasification terminal in Bilbao, in Spain's Basque region. The facility will have a throughput capacity of 2.7 billion cu m/year of natural gas. The consortium will also build two 150,000 cu m storage tanks. The contract includes engineering, procurement, supervision, construction, commissioning, and training. The project will take 36 months to complete. Sofregaz is a joint venture of Tecnimont (a member of Italy's Montedison), 66%, and Gaz de France, 34%. It has a 27% stake in the consortium. SN Technigaz of the Bouygues Offshore SA group has a 40% stake, while Initec, a Spanish engineering company, holds 33%.
Nine workers assigned to clean an alkaline tanker at Formosa Plastics Group�s sixth naphtha cracker were injured July 14 when the tanker exploded as its manhole was opened. The four most seriously injured suffered third-degree burns over 20-40% of their bodies, while the other five suffered varying degrees of lung injury from inhaling hot gases. An investigation is under way to determine the cause of the accident.