Even more natural gas will be flowing to the southeastern United States after Williams Partners LP picked up its second federal approval in a month to beef up infrastructure on its Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line (Transco), a 10,500-mile system that delivers gas from the Gulf of Mexico to New York City, the Mid-Atlantic and the Atlanta area.

Williams Partners LP announced Monday that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has approved a proposal to expand Transco to serve markets in the southeastern United States through the $36 million Mobile Bay South II Expansion project. Transco’s current system capacity is approximately 8.6 Bcf/d.

New service from the expansion would be available in May 2011. The project has been designed to create an additional 380,000 Dth/d of southbound, year-round firm transportation capacity on the Mobile Bay Lateral from Transco’s mainline at Station 85 near Butler, AL, to its interconnect with Gulfstream Natural Gas System in Coden, AL.

Phil Wright, president of Williams’ natural gas pipeline business, said the expansion will provide an “economically priced link between the abundant onshore supplies now available at Station 85 and growing markets in southern Alabama and Florida.”

The expansion will require a compression addition of 8,180 hp at Transco Compressor Station 85 and facility modifications at Station 83. Construction is scheduled to begin in August 2010 and conclude by May 2011.

In mid-July FERC approved Transco’s and Florida Gas Transmission’s (FGT) joint application to connect the jointly owned Mobile Bay Lateral with a liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal being developed in Pascagoula, MS, as well as proceed with an upstream pipeline project (see Daily GPI, July 19).

The two pipelines got the go-ahead on the Pascagoula Expansion, which calls for the construction of 15.5 miles of 26-inch diameter pipeline connecting the proposed Gulf LNG Energy LLC Clean Energy terminal to Transco’s and FGT’s existing Mobile Bay Lateral [CP09-456]. The project would have the capacity to deliver approximately 810,000 Dth/d and would be located in portions of Mobile County, AL, and Jackson County, MS, at the Bayou Casotte portion of the Port of Pascagoula. The Pascagoula facilities are targeted to be in service in September 2011.

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