Florida has become a hot bed of new gas pipeline development andexpansions designed to serve burgeoning power generation demand.Even before the ink is dry on its last expansion application,Florida Gas Transmission (FGT) is gearing up for another $250million expansion filing with FERC later this year.

The pipeline said yesterday it has firm commitments from FloridaPower & Light and Gulf Power Co., a Southern Companysubsidiary, for additional firm capacity. Details of the expansionstill are being worked out, but the project mainly would bedesigned to serve two power plants, one on the East Coast ofFlorida near Daytona Beach and another on the Gulf Coast nearPanama City. FPL plans to repower the Sanford power plant inVolusia County with gas technology to double the generatingcapacity of its existing facility. Gulf Power is planning to builda new gas-fired combined-cycle unit at its existing Lansing Smithfacility near in Bay County. FGT’s Phase V expansion is expected tobe in-service by the second quarter of 2002.

The pipeline’s $350 million Phase IV expansion was filed withFERC in December and the company still is awaiting a preliminarydetermination on non-environmental matters. That project isexpected to be in service by May 2001. For the Phase IV expansion,eight shippers executed 20-year firm commitments for 272,000MMBtu/d of incremental firm service, net of turn-back capacity.

Meanwhile, for the first time other pipeline companies areattempting to capture some of FGT’s prized Florida marketplace.Coastal and Williams have proposed competing pipelines that wouldstretch from Mobile, AL, across the Gulf of Mexico to Tampa, FL,and then would cross the state to cities along the Atlantic Coast.Each would be designed to carry between 700 MMcf/d and 1 Bcf/d ofgas. Neither Williams’ Buccaneer pipeline or Coastal’s Gulfstreamproject have been filed with FERC.

The big attraction for the pipelines is Florida’s strong powergeneration growth. The state has forecast a need more than 10,000MW of additional power generation by 2007.

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