How quickly is CenterPoint overhauling its natural gas infrastructure? - Houston Public Media
How quickly is CenterPoint overhauling its natural gas infrastructure? - Houston Public Media
CenterPoint Energy has been drawing heavy criticism for its handling of electric power distribution in the wake of Hurricane Beryl, and that's raising concerns about its other mission: transporting natural gas.
"Most of the lines underground here in Houston have been there for more than five decades," said University of Houston energy fellow Ed Hirs. "These are steel or iron, and they're decaying over time."
Brett Adamcik, CenterPoint's system integrity and reliability director, said the average age of the pipes under Houston is closer to 36 years, which he argued is younger than what's standard in the industry.
"We have around 25,000 miles of pipelines and a little over 1.5 million customers," Adamcik said. "In a given year, we'll replace between 200 and 300 miles."
Adamcik estimated that fewer than half the 25,000 miles of pipe in the Houston area are still steel and that those that remain are treated with a coating to resist rust.
"In our system today, a lot of what we're installing is mainly polyethylene, or PE, pipe," Adamcik said. "Some of the main, more troubling or problem materials that you'll see in the industry, we've removed from our system years ago. Cast iron, we removed that in the Houston area in 2009."
Related Knowledge Center: Liquefied natural gas
Driven by plentiful natural gas produced from shale plays, the United States began exporting liquefied natural gas in 2016 when the Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana opened and shipped its first cargo. Since then, additional capacity, or trains, have been added to Sabine Pass, and terminals have become operational in Cameron Parish, La.; Hackberry, La.; Cove Point, Md.; and Corpus Christi, Texas. The Energy Information Administration projects that U.S. LNG export capacity will reach 8.9 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) by the end of 2019, making it the third largest in the world, behind Australia and Qatar. The tariff war with China has the potential to impact some final investment decisions for additional terminals in the coming months.