Addressing booming energy markets in North Dakota, Pennsylvania and Texas were (left to right) Steve Bakken, Larson Engineering; Tony Bartolomeo, Pennoni Associates; Kendal King, Freese & Nichols; and Leo Golden, Enbridge, Inc.
FERC Commissioner Tony Clark said that while U.S. oil and natural gas production has grown at an almost exponential rate in recent years, many of the new oil and natural gas fields are in areas that are not well-served by the existing pipeline network
"We're going to need a lot more pipelines," he said. "In the past three years, FERC has received more than 30 petitions to develop more than 15,000 miles of pipeline."
Clark admitted that FERC is struggling to keep up with the pace of the market. To speed up its approval process, the agency is contracting with private engineers to help with its field work and streamline permitting.
Participating in the Opportunities in Booming Energy Markets panel, Steve Bakken of Larson Engineering said, "We need everything in North Dakota. Our state has been the fastest growing economy for each of the past four years, but we're missing the infrastructure. It doesn't matter what your firm works on. We need you."
For the Marcellus Shale region, Pennoni Associates President/CEO Tony Bartolomeo reported that production has increased by one trillion cubic feet per year since 2011. He said "Philadelphia is looking to become an energy hub" to capitalize on the stark pricing differential between natural gas in the Mid-Atlantic ($3/MBTU) and Japan ($17/MBTU).
Although Texas has been the center of U.S. oil production for more than 100 years, Kendal King of Freese Nichols said the combination of hydraulic fracking and horizontal drilling has opened up vast new sources and created lots of work for engineering firms, even if they are not experts in oil and gas. "Understand, though, that there's quite a difference between working for municipalities and these private clients," he said. "They move at breakneck pace, are cost conscious, and have indefinite scopes of service."
Leo Golden, vice president of major projects for Enbridge Inc., said that his firm plans to invest $27 billion in its North American pipeline network over the next three years. "We contract out a lot," he said. "We're going to spend $1 billion on engineering services during that period."