The products it sells are used by oil- and gas-drilling companies, pipeline companies, refineries and other energy-sector firms.

WSJ: Trio of IPOs Have Mixed Debuts

Having managed her state's department responsible for oil and gas exploration and exploitation, having negotiated a long-delayed natural gas pipeline through Canada to the Lower 48 and having been married for nearly two decades to a blue-collar worker in Alaska's North Slope oil fields, she knows more about the subject than all three of the others on the two parties' tickets put together.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Sarah Palin's experience

At a high temperature and pressure, gasification converts coal, or other carbon fuels, into synthesis gas that is either burned in a turbine to produce electricity, as in Summit's case, or turned into other products, like diesel oil, fertilizer and pipeline-quality natural gas.

FORBES: Old King Coal

"A leading engineer and manufacturer of high-quality, flexible pipeline products for oil and gas transportation in the susbsea production industry, " Wellstream's acquisition demonstrates a double interest by GE to both tap the deepwater drilling business and enter one of the world's most dynamic economies in the sector, Brazil.

FORBES: Magazine Article

America's oil pipelines are largely unfettered by the rigid regulations that govern gas-pipeline tariffs.

ECONOMIST: Energy Transfer bids for Sunoco

Oil and Gas UK - the offshore industry body - said oil transported through the Brent pipeline system represented 10% of the UK's North Sea oil production.

BBC: Cormorant Alpha

The provisions on oil drilling in Alaska are probably too controversial to pass, but support for a natural-gas pipeline may be thrown in as a sop to the state instead.

ECONOMIST: Energy policy

For example, some 1, 000 barrels of crude oil, water and gas mixture poured onto the tundra after a 2-foot gash formed in a pipeline in November 2009.

WSJ: As CEO Hayward Remade BP, Safety, Cost Drives Clashed