Kinder Morgan has confirmed that it’s closing its Durango office and moving about 19 people to Cortez and Texas, as a result of the delay on its Lobos Pipeline and St. Johns CO2 source field projects.
Company spokesperson Sara Loeffelholz said when the transition is completed “over the next several months” seven positions will have been eliminated.
About 25 people staff the office at 185 Suttle St., she said. Roughly 85 employees are based in the office in Cortez.
“As a result of the previously announced delay of the Lobos Pipeline and St. Johns CO2 source field development project, Kinder Morgan will close its office in Durango, Colorado, which served primarily as a temporary construction office,” Loeffelholz said in an emailed statement. “Kinder Morgan will relocate the majority of personnel that were assigned to the Durango office to other locations, including the company’s Cortez, Colorado, office and offices in Midland and Houston, Texas. This transition will take place over the next several months.”
The Albuquerque Business Journal reported in January that energy giant withdrew its right-of-way application with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management for the proposed Lobos CO2 Pipeline because of the falling price of oil.
The $1 billion project included the development of the St. Johns CO2 source field in Apache County, Arizona, and the Cortez Pipeline expansion from central to southeastern New Mexico.
When the announcement was made, company officials stressed that the Lobos CO2 Pipeline project was being shelved, not terminated.
“We have not canceled the Lobos Pipeline Project, but rather delayed it for the time being given current market conditions,” said Jesse Arenivas, president of Kinder Morgan CO2. The pipeline would have run 213 miles from Arizona through New Mexico to the Cortez Pipeline south of Moriarty in Torrance County.