Oneok Partners LP, Tulsa, will invest $405-470 million through yearend 2011 on projects to expand gathering and processing in the Bakken shale in Williston basin in North Dakota and the Woodford shale in Oklahoma.

The El Merk central processing plant, to be operated by Groupement Berkine in Algeria’s Berkine basin, will receive turbo compression equipment from GE Oil & Gas in a $100 million contract executed through subcontractor Petrofac.

Energy Transfer Partners LP reported that the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has approved construction and operation of its planned Tiger natural gas pipeline, which will serve the Haynesville shale and Bossier sands producing regions in Louisiana and East Texas.

Enbridge Energy Partners LP, Houston, will add a cryogenic gas processing plant on its Anadarko natural gas gathering system in the Texas Panhandle, the company reported.

Construction of the 1,200-km Nord Stream natural gas pipeline, which will extend through the Baltic Sea from Vyborg, Russia, to Greifswald, Germany, began Apr. 9.

Canada’s National Energy Board last week approved a new gas plant to serve increased shale gas production from the Horn River basin in British Columbia.

Appropriate mitigation measures could reduce potentially adverse environmental impacts from a proposed expansion of Kern River Gas Transmission Co.’s interstate pipeline in Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada to less-than-significant levels, the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said on Mar. 26.

Pemex Refining let a $622 million engineering, procurement, and construction contract to ICA Fluor for gasoline desulfurization trains at two refineries.

China National Petroleum Corp completed construction of a 1,090 m tunnel beneath the Amru River for a planned 1,000 km extension from Russia’s East Siberia Pacific Ocean pipeline.

Argentina has launched a $314 million, 37.7-km natural gas pipeline across the Strait of Magellan, linking Cabo Espiritu Santo in Tierra del Fuego province with Cabo Vírgenes in Santa Cruz province.

Canada’s National Energy Board Mar. 11 approved an application from TransCanada Keystone Pipeline GP Ltd. to construct and operate the Keystone Gulf Coast Expansion Project (Keystone XL), as well as the proposed tolls for the pipeline once it becomes operational.