Piedmont Natural Gas and Progress Energy Carolinas have agreed for Piedmont to provide gas delivery service to the utility’s new generating unit to be built at its existing Sutton site near Wilmington, NC. Piedmont said the infrastructure to be developed “alleviates the need” for its Robeson liquefied natural gas (LNG) peak-shaving storage project.

Piedmont said it will construct approximately 133 miles of transmission pipeline and install 23,000 hp of compression to serve the 620 MW combined-cycle unit at Sutton. The company’s capital investment in the facilities is estimated at $217 million. The facilities will create “cost-effective expansion capacity that Piedmont will use to help serve the growing natural gas requirements of its other customers in the eastern part of North Carolina,” the company said.

Progress Energy Carolinas has a long-term service agreement with Piedmont for the capacity, Piedmont said. Subject to approval by the North Carolina Utilities Commission, Piedmont will begin construction of the pipeline and compression facilities early in 2011 to have them in service in June 2013.

Piedmont said the infrastructure to support the Sutton unit makes the Robeson LNG peak-shaving project (see Daily GPI, June 10, 2008) unnecessary at this time. The project was put on hold by the company in March 2009 pending further evaluation of its growth requirements in the eastern part of North Carolina and the timing of gas infrastructure to serve that growth.

“Although work on the Robeson LNG storage project will be suspended indefinitely, Piedmont anticipates that it will invest $60 million of the $217 million Sutton project in Robeson County, NC, which will have a significant positive economic impact on the county and expand Piedmont’s role in the local community,” it said.

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