Page 13 - NorthAmOil Week 37

NorthAmOil PIPELINES & TRANSPORT NorthAmOil

Inter Pipeline restores service on Polaris

ALBERTA CANADA’S Inter Pipeline has announced that to normal rates now that service on Polaris had
service on its Polaris pipeline system in Alberta resumed.
has been restored. The 865,000 barrel per day Imperial added that the production impact
(bpd) pipeline, which supplies ultra-light oil of the pipeline outage was still being determined
from Edmonton to oil sands facilities to be used and would be updated at a later date.
as a diluent in bitumen transport, had been Separately, on September 3, Inter Pipe-
offline since August 29, when a leak was detected. line reported that it had restored service to the
In a September 14 statement, Inter Pipeline Hangingstone project, which is jointly owned by
said the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) had Japan Canada Oil Sands (JACOS) and China’s
approved the installation of a roughly 400-metre CNOOC Ltd.
bypass pipeline that enables the western portion Inter Pipeline’s Corridor system had also ini-
of the Polaris pipeline to resume operations. tially been taken offline when the leak was first
Repair work on the pipeline continues, as does discovered, but restarted on August 31 once the
an investigation into the cause of the leak. Polaris segment responsible for the leak was
The outage on Polaris had disrupted certain identified.
oil sands operations. On September 2, Exxon- The spill that resulted from the leak is
Mobil subsidiary Imperial Oil announced that reported to have amounted to 90 cubic metres
it was shutting down production at its 220,000 (566 barrels) of light oil, and occurred 80 metres
bpd Kearl facility as a result of the pipeline from a wetland and 1 km from the Clearwater
outage. This week, Imperial issued an update River. Inter Pipeline reported earlier this month
saying it was ramping output at Kearl back up that clean-up efforts were “progressing well”.™

INVESTMENT

Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth

fund buys into Cheniere

US-UAE THE Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) Cheniere Energy Partners to Brookfield Asset
– the emirate’s main sovereign wealth fund – has Management’s infrastructure unit, as well as to
disclosed a 5.05% stake in US LNG exporter its own Blackstone Infrastructure Partners unit.
Cheniere Energy. The disclosure came in a Bloomberg has reported, citing sources familiar
September 14 filing with the US Securities and with the matter, that the deal involved a $34.25
Exchange Commission (SEC). per unit sale price, which puts its overall value
The fund’s interest in Cheniere, the US’ at around $7bn. The stake will be split equally
Cheniere is the US’ leading producer of LNG, consists of around between Blackstone and Brookfield, with each
largest LNG exporter. 12.7mn shares and is valued at roughly $615mn, thus owning almost 21% in Cheniere Energy
based on Cheniere’s trading price. According Partners upon the deal’s completion by the end
to Bloomberg, this makes it the fourth-largest of the third quarter of 2020.
shareholder in the US company. Cheniere itself owns a 48.6% interest in
ADIA owns almost $580bn worth of assets Cheniere Energy Partners. The limited part-
and is the world’s third-largest government nership has no involvement in Cheniere’s other
wealth fund, according to the SWF Institute. liquefaction plant, Corpus Christi LNG in Texas.
The fund’s acquisition has emerged as a major Separately, Cheniere said on September 15
stake in Cheniere Energy Partners, a limited that it had upsized and priced an offering of
partnership created by Cheniere to develop and senior secured notes due in 2028 from the ini-
operate the Sabine Pass LNG terminal, as well as tially announced $1bn to $2bn. The offering is
to act as a capital-raising vehicle, and which is expected to close on September 22.
also in the process of changing hands. The LNG producer’s share price rose above
In late August it emerged that Blackstone $50 on September 16, after news of the ADIA
Group is selling its stake of roughly 41% in stake emerged earlier that day.™

Week 37 17•September•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P13