OTHER NATURAL GAS BUSINESSES
William McBride, plant operator,
records natural gas levels at the
Longview plant – one of 15 treating
and processing facilities on our East
Texas System.
Enbridge Marketing provides natural gas supply, transportation, balancing, storage and
sales services to producers and wholesale customers. The marketing group purchases
natural gas from producers that use our gathering pipelines or other connected systems and
then sells natural gas to wholesale customers based on published daily or monthly price
indices, incorporating a charge for services and the pass-through costs of transportation.
As a result of the completed segments of our natural gas system expansions and
additional initiatives in 2007 and 2008, our marketing business now has increased
access to several interstate pipelines, which it can use to transport natural gas to primary
markets where it can be sold at more favorable prices. Our natural gas marketing group
uses derivative financial instruments and other activities to manage the Partnership’s
exposure to commodity price fluctuations.
Dufour Petroleum is our trucking, rail and liquids marketing subsidiary. It receives
natural gas liquids, crude oil and carbon dioxide from wellheads and treating, processing
and fractionation facilities and delivers these products to wholesale customers such as
distributors, refiners and chemical processors. Dufour operates a fleet of 250 trucks,
320 trailers, 10 railcars owned and 90 railcars leased, which includes the transportation
assets of a trucking company located in Alexandria, La., acquired by Dufour in 2008.
The acquisition was in response to the growing supply of natural gas liquids, crude oil Texas System.
and carbon dioxide from our processing facilities, as well as the need to better serve our
U.S. Gulf Coast customers.
We also own two interstate natural gas transportation systems, AlaTenn and Midla, and
several intrastate systems that operate in the southeastern region of the United States.