Sendero Midstream Partners LP will invest $750 million in four new natural gas gathering and processing plants in southeast New Mexico over the next five years.
The company announced its plans Monday morning during inauguration ceremonies for its Sendero Carlsbad Gas Processing Plant about 10 miles south of Carlsbad, which began operating in December. That $220 million plant and pipeline system can process up to 130 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.
Once Sendero’s other New Mexico facilities are built, local processing capacity will surpass 1 billion cubic feet per day, said Sendero President and CEO Clay Bretches. All the facilities will serve oil and gas producers in the Delaware Basin, an extremely productive rock formation that protrudes from southwest Texas northward into Eddy and Lea counties.
“The Delaware is one of the most prolific areas for oil and natural gas production in the entire world, and Sendero’s investments are a recognition of the significant needs for midstream services in a rapidly developing basin,” Bretches said.
The company’s next plant will also be in Eddy County, where the company is negotiating for industrial revenue bonds to begin construction. The company is still considering locations for the next three plants, Bretches said.
Sendero employed about 150 people per day on average during construction of the Carlsbad plant, which began in January 2017. It now employs about 15 permanent workers.
“Over the next five years, we expect to continue employing about 150 people on average per day as we build out the other four plants,” Bretches said. “When all the plants are operating, our permanent workforce will rise to about 70 people.”
The new Carlsbad facility marks Sendero’s first thrust into production after forming in 2014. A privately held firm owned by New Jersey-based Energy Capital Partners, the company spent nearly three years scouting the U.S. for the best basins and drilling partners before settling on the Delaware, Bretches said.
Sendero is one of a half dozen companies that have built or expanded natural gas processing plants in the Delaware since 2015. That’s a new development for New Mexico, since most processing facilities have traditionally been located across the border in Texas.
But with drilling companies pumping record investments into the Delaware and driving New Mexico oil production to unprecedented highs, more producers need access to pipeline gathering systems and processing facilities closer to where they operate.
“It’s great to see New Mexico winning battles to attract new businesses to our side of the Permian Basin, rather than the Texas side,” said New Mexico Oil and Gas Association Executive Director Ryan Flynn.
By: Kevin Robinson-Avila (ABJ Journal)
Click here to view source article.
Archives for May 2018
Integrated Development Ordinance (IDO) Update – Effective 5/17!
City Council Hearing
City Council will hear proposed amendments to the Integrated Development Ordinance (IDO) for residential garage standards and the Sawmill Character Protection Overlay.
Council will also consider a new Resolution for the follow-up zoning conversion process to replace R-17-240 that makes clear that the zoning conversions will be a legislative action by Council, not the typical zone map amendment process for individual properties.
WHEN: Monday, May 7 at 5 p.m.
WHERE: Vincent E. Griego Chambers, City Hall
Parking beneath Civic Plaza will be validated. Sign up begins at 4:30 p.m. to speak during general comment or during the agenda item.
View proposed amendments here.
IDO – Effective Soon!
The IDO goes into effect in less than two weeks.
- Submittals of complete applications through Wednesday, May 16 will be reviewed and decided under existing policies, regulations, and procedures.
- Submittals of complete applications on or after Thursday, May 17, will be reviewed and decided under the new IDO regulations and procedures.
New application forms, checklists, and fee schedule will be posted to the Planning Department webpage soon. Check back often for updates.
Development Review Services
Trainings & Frequently Asked Questions
Still getting up to speed on all the changes and what they mean to you?
- See videos, presentation PDFs, and handouts from recent trainings here.
Read answers to Frequently Asked Questions here
Zoning Conversions
Did you know that all zoning in Albuquerque will change on May 17, 2018 when the IDO becomes effective?
The City is going from 1200+ zones today to a set of about 20 zones in the IDO. You can check your zoning in this Zoning Conversion Map.
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Intel Announces Support For Water Conservation Work
Intel has announced it will work with several nonprofits in northern New Mexico to help with water conservation in the Rio Grande watershed.
Linda Qian, Intel communication and media relations manager, said the company returns 80 percent of the water it uses back to the communities it works in.
“The rest of it is lost to either evaporation or irrigation,” Qian said. “So a few years ago, we sat down and realized that there was more we could be doing.”
Last fall, she said, Intel announced a new global goal to restore 100 percent of its water use around the world back to the communities surrounding its plants.
“We are doing this by going out into the community and working with non-profits, like the National Forest Foundation and Trout Unlimited locally,” Qian said. “We really want to fund the collaborative community projects that benefit the watershed.”
According to Qian, Intel has already funded environmental projects in California, Oregon and Arizona.
“This is the first one we will be funding in New Mexico, and it should be in full swing in just a couple of months,” Qian said.
The first project to begin in New Mexico is not at an Intel facility, she said, but in northern New Mexico.
“In the winter time, not as much water flows through the Rio Grande and it impacts how fish are able to rear and spawn, and so what we are doing with Trout Unlimited is we are actually paying landowners in the area to release additional water into the watershed during those low-flow times,” Qian said.
Work has already yielded results, she said.
“This year the Rio Grande’s flow was increased by 12 percent, which shows how impactful the work is,” Qian said.
Now that this project is in place with funding, Qian said, Intel would like to continue it for the foreseeable future.
By: Stephen Montoya (ABQ Journal)
Click here to view source article.
2nd-Longest US Expansion on Record Keeps Churning Out Jobs
The U.S. economy has delivered steady if only modest gains for most Americans since the Great Recession ended in 2009. It’s been a frustration for many.
Yet the very sluggishness of the economic expansion helps explain why it’s now the second-longest on record and why more of the country might soon benefit from higher pay.
Nearly nine years into the recovery, the job market keeps delivering: The government said Friday that employers added 164,000 jobs in April — the 91st straight month of hiring growth, the longest such streak on record. More tellingly, the unemployment rate fell to 3.9 percent, the lowest since December 2000. Eight years ago, the jobless rate was 10 percent.
But for much of the expansion, many people have felt left behind. Some have found only part-time work. Pay growth, on average, has been meager. The stock market boom and low interest rates that defined the recovery have favored the wealthy.
The economy’s modest growth, though, has helped prevent it from overheating and skidding into another recession, as often happened during more robust expansions. And some economists say the ever-lower unemployment rate suggests that a wider swath of Americans soon stand to benefit from stronger pay growth.
“It’s just not sustainable for average pay growth to be so low in a labor market this tight,” said Andrew Chamberlain, chief economist at the jobs site Glassdoor.
Average hourly earnings have risen 2.6 percent from a year ago. That is slightly more than the year-over-year wage growth of roughly 2 percent that prevailed in 2014 and 2015, when the unemployment rate was higher. Yet by historical standards, wage growth has been relatively stagnant.
Past expansions have delivered faster growth. But since World War II, they have lasted an average of less than five years before slipping into recession.
Gus Faucher, chief economist for PNC Financial, said he thinks annual wage growth could average 3 percent by the end of the year. He notes that employers are having an increasingly difficult time finding qualified workers, creating pressure for them to raise wages.
That may explain why the pace of job growth was slower in March and April: There aren’t enough unemployed people to fill openings.
Knutec, a company in Bradenton, Florida, that builds communication network systems, hopes to double its 19-person staff in the next 60 days to meet demand from customers.
Troy Knutson, a founder of the company, said he offers $15 an hour to new employees, who are usually trained on the job how to haul cable and install networks. He said he’s now competing against fast food restaurants that are offering workers roughly the same starting wage. The difference, Knutson says, is that his company will provide a career path, cover the costs of health insurance and generally raise a worker’s pay to $35 an hour after five years.
“The job market is getting competitive, and people are able to request higher wages,” he said.
An encouraging sign for the economy is that the pace of hiring has yet to be disrupted by dramatic global market swings, a recent pickup in inflation or the risk that the tariffs being pushed by President Donald Trump could provoke a trade war.
Much of the economy’s durability is due, in fact, to the healthy job market. The increase in people earning paychecks has bolstered demand for housing, even though fewer properties are being listed for sale. Consumer confidence has improved over the past year. And more people are shopping, with retail sales having picked up in March after three monthly declines.
Manufacturers added 24,000 workers last month, a sign that possible tariffs on steel, aluminum and Chinese goods haven’t altered hiring plans at most U.S. factories. Restaurants and hotels hired a net 18,000. The health care and social assistance sector added 29,300 jobs and the construction industry 17,000.
With qualified job applicants harder to find in many industries, employers have become less and less likely to shed employees. The four-week moving average for people applying for first-time unemployment benefits has reached its lowest level since 1973.
The trend reflects a decline in mass layoffs. Many companies expect the economy to keep expanding, especially after a dose of stimulus from tax cuts signed into law by Trump that have also increased the federal budget deficit.
Inflation has shown signs of accelerating slightly, eroding some of the potential wage growth. Consumer prices rose at a year-over-year pace of 2.4 percent in March, the sharpest annual increase in 12 months.
The Federal Reserve has set an annual inflation target of 2 percent. Investors expect the Fed to raise rates at least twice more this year, after an earlier rate hike in March, to keep inflation from climbing too far above that target. Many economists saw the April jobs report as confirming that forecast.
Scott Anderson, chief economist at the Bank of the West, said the April jobs report suggests that inflation may remain tame, which means the Fed might not raise rates more than three times this year.
“Slower job growth with little sign of inflation pressures is just what the doctor ordered to keep this economic expansion on track without a serious case of overheating,” Anderson said.
By: Josh Boak (ABQ Journal)
Click here to view source article.
