Pipeline Operations & Engineering

Right of Way

 

The purpose of the Right-of-Way Interest Group is to build community within its peer group and engage the Interest Group in dialogue to facilitate the exchange of information.

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Operating Conference – Nashville - July 20-22, 2015 

The Right of Way Roundtable was held in conjunction with the SGA Operating Conference at the Omni Hotel, Nashville, TN on July 20-22, 2015. The Roundtable was attended by approximately 40 members.

Thanks to Coleen Magness and Adam Spry for providing the leadership in developing an outstanding agenda and group of presentations. Randy Keyes provided support and assisted in securing speakers for the Roundtable.

The Monday afternoon, Denny Yueng, Black & Veatch (SGA Gas Supply Marketing member) provided an insightful overview of the "US Natural Gas Supply & Demand Outlook". Following was a roundtable discussion on the topic of the use of drones and the challenges facing the expansion of their use in siting project routing and patrolling right-of-way for encroachments and vegetation management.

Andrew Craig, TransCanada (an SGA Member Company) opened Tuesday's session with an "eye-opening" look at the challenges that TransCanada has faced dealing with landowners and radical environmental factions in their efforts to complete the Keystone XL pipeline project. Beth Minear, Contract Land Staff (an SGA Associate Member Company) provided a formal presentation to a joint session including Legal and ROW attendees. After Andrew's presentation, Beth's session focused on route selection and the pre-project planning and early messaging.

The afternoon started with Dr. Kevin Preister, The Center for Social Ecology and Public Policy, sharing understandings and learnings from 25 years of project management and development. Their approach focuses on building public trust and to develop mutually beneficial relationships with communities and the public to build and operate essential facilities and infrastructure.

Following Dr. Preister was a roundtable discussion moderated by Coleen and Adam with attendees to share experiences and best practices dealing with the public and landowners and meeting the challenges of project opponents and obstructionists.

David Swearingen, Federal Energy Regulatory Agency, started of Wednesday morning with an update on changes at the FERC and major initiatives that will impact the natural gas industry.

Following David was a roundtable discussion on GIS Mapping and Data Base Tools. This session was moderated by Coleen and Adam and included short presentations from subject matter experts representing Williams, Piedmont and Contract Land Services (Russell Chiles).

Again, thanks to Coleen, Adam and Randy for another outstanding ROW Roundtable filled with timely and relevant content.

 

Roundtable Presentations:

Andrew Craig - Project Oppositions and Obstructionist Organizations

Beth Minear - Joint Session with the Legal Roundtable - Project Prosecution, Route selection Considerations and Early Messaging

Kevin Preister - Building Public Trust and the "Social License to Operate"

David Swearingen - FERC Regulatory and Major Initiatives Update - Part 1

David Swearingen - FERC Regulatory and Major Initiatives Update - Part 2

Denny Yueng - US Natural Gas Supply & Demand Update

  

Operating Conference – New Orleans - July 28-30, 2014

The Right of Way Roundtable was held in conjunction with the SGA Operating Conference at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, New Orleans, LA on July 28-30, 2014. The Roundtable was attended by more than 55.

David Bowers, Randy Keyes and Sandra Hotard coordinated the planning of the roundtable and provided the leadership for developing the agenda, securing the speakers and managing the Roundtable. Again, the topics were spot on for addressing major challenges facing the natural gas industry and were timely and relevant.

The Monday afternoon, Breakout Session featured Pat Chambers, Supervisory Engineer with the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers Vicksburg District, recently returned from a 16-month deployment to Kabul, Afghanistan, in support of Overseas Contingency Operations. Pat is the chief of the Navigation Section and assistant chief of River Operations Branch in the Operations Division at the Vicksburg District.  Pat provided an excellent presentation regarding the permitting and siting for infrastructure installation along rivers, levees and wetlands under the jurisdiction of the Corps of Engineers.

Tuesday opened with an outstanding presentation sponsored by Spectra Energy. Danny Gibbs, Director of Right of Way Acquisition – US Expansion Projects Engineering & Construction for Spectra Energy and Neil Nixon, President of Nixon & Associates, teamed up to provide a stimulating and interactive presentation focused on training employees of your company to become ambassadors for the natural gas industry (keepers of the blue flame) and advocates for you company in the community.

Following was a joint session with Right of Way and Legal, where John Wilburn, partner at McGuire Woods LLP, provided a thorough Formal Presentation on Railroad Right of Way & Easement Challenges.  

Following lunch with the Exhibiters and Associate Members, Adam Spry, Supervisor, Land Management & Acquisition - Piedmont Natural Gas, opened the afternoon session with a presentation titled: “Defined and Undefined ROW Easements & Encroachment Remediation”.

Doug Sipe, formally with FERC and now Willbros Group’s Vice President of Regulatory & Public Affairs, provided an update on current developments within FERC which are likely to impact the natural gas industry. The presentation was made available to SGA Network subscribers on a live feed.

Wednesday morning was committed to sharing best practices with short presentations by Member Company representatives providing specific easement, landowner, and right of way challenges associated with infrastructure expansion projects. Randy Keyes, Anadarko, Butch McCoy, Columbia Pipeline Group, Steve Chastain, Percheron Field Services and Coleen Magness, Access Midstream provided short presentations on specific challenges faced by their respective companies and answered questions which stimulated significant dialogue and sharing of practices that are working for member companies.

Again, many thanks to the leadership of the ROW Committee and David Bowers for an outstanding three days of presentations and discussion. We look forward to seeing you all in Nashville, TN in July 2015 for the SGA Operating Conference and ROW Roundtable and Breakout.

Roundtable Presentations:

 

Operating Conference 2013 - Houston, TX

Roundtable Presentations:

 Resources

 Harper Defends Keystone Project as Job Creator

  • Wednesday, July 31, 2013

    Prime Minister Stephen Harper defended the potential economic benefits of the proposed $7.6-billion Canada-U.S. pipeline as President Barack Obama continued to poke fun at the job-creation possibilities of the hotly disputed Keystone XL project.

    Click Here to read more.

 

More Information About Committees and Interest Groups

An Interest Group is a database of gas industry professionals interested in a particular subject matter. SGA members may join as many Interest Groups as they prefer. Each Interest Group is managed by a Committee. Learn more about the Committee that manages this Interest Group by downloading their Activity Plan (above).

 

Contact Mike Grubb for more information.

 

2012 Right of Way Roundtable Presentations and Summaries