To test support to carry up to 1.4 Bcf/d of natural gas from the Permian’s Delaware sub-basin to Gulf Coast and Mexico markets, Summit Midstream Partners LP on Monday launched an open season.

The nonbinding open season through March 2 is gauging interest in the Double E Pipeline, designed with multiple delivery points around the Waha Hub that would connect to in-service and planned pipelines moving gas to southern markets. With enough support, an in-service date is planned for early 2021.

The 24-to-36-inch diameter pipeline project as designed would run 120 miles, with capacity of 1.0 Bcf/d expandable to 1.4 Bcf/d with compression). Double E would transport gas from the northern Delaware area, servicing various receipt points in New Mexico’s Eddy and Lea counties and from the West Texas counties of Loving, Ward, Reeves and Pecos counties.

“The project will have multiple direct downstream connections based on shipper demand and preferences,” Summit management said. “Additional receipt laterals and extensions are being contemplated as well.”

For information on the Double E pipeline, potential shippers need to complete a service request form and/or request information by email. Additional information is available from Summit’s Forbes Herring, director of business development, at (214) 242-1962.

Interest in Delaware gas takeaway to the Gulf Coast and to Mexico is rising, spurred in part on Apache Corp.’s intriguing Alpine High development.

In December Apache secured 500 MMcf/d of transport capacity and an option to become a stakeholder via Gulf Coast Express, a $1.7 billion proposed project designed to carry 1.92 Bcf/d from the Delaware to Texas and Mexico markets.

Earlier this month Riverstone Holdings LLC and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. agreed to pay $1.6 billion for a portfolio of gas processing properties in the Delaware from Dallas-based Lucid Energy Group and its financial sponsor EnCap Flatrock Midstream.

Houston-based Enterprise Products Partners LP also in early January said it would add 300 MMcf/d of incremental capacity to its cryogenic gas processing facility under construction near Orla, TX, in the Delaware. A third processing train is being added to the facility in Reeves County, increasing the plant’s overall volume capacity to 900 MMcf/d.