The Public Service Co. of Colorado announced last week italready has begun work on its 53-mile Front Range pipeline which,when completed, will serve the Denver, CO, natural gas market. Theconstruction comes less than one month after the Colorado PublicUtilities Commission gave the go-ahead for the $25 million pipelineproject.

“This project represents the largest single expansion of our gasdelivery system ever,” said Wayne Brunetti, president and COO ofNew Century Energies, parent company of Public Service. “Thecapacity of this 24-inch pipeline will provide 269,000 dekatherms -enough natural gas to serve about 150,000 customers.”

Although there are competing plans on the table for anotherpipeline in the same part of the state – namely KN Interstate GasTransmission’s Front Runner pipeline – “we are pleased to be theone moving ahead now,” he noted. The Front Range pipeline will runfrom the Chalk Bluffs Hub near the Colorado-Wyoming border to apoint near the Fort St. Vrain generating station, and is expectedto be completed by November.

The Front Range pipeline will be funded through WYCO DevelopmentLLC, an alliance between Public Service and Colorado Interstate Gas(CIG) that was formed recently to increase access to supplies ofnatural gas.

On a related front, CIG President Jon R. Whitney in a letter toFERC Chairman James Hoecker expressed concern over the Commission’srecent decision to strike from consideration at its last meeting ajoint CIG-Wyoming Interstate Gas Co. (WIC) expansion project[CP98-128]. The proposed compression expansion would increasedeliveries of Wyoming gas supplies into the Front Range pipelineand Trailblazer Pipeline.

The Commission’s decision “imperils the in-service date and willadd unnecessary costs to the project unless the Commission votesnotationally to issue the certification” prior to its next meetingon July 15th, he said in the June 24th missive. As of lastThursday, FERC had not responded notationally. The proposedin-service date for the CIG-WIC project is Nov. 1, 1998.

Producers from the Powder River Basin region “stand to losesubstantial revenues if this project is delayed because they cannotcompete in the marketplace,” Whitney said. “Thus, it is extremelyimportant to avoid or minimize any further delay in certificatingthis project.”

Susan Parker

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