Southern Star Central Corp. and a unit of NextEra Energy Inc. are offering capacity in the proposed Sooner Trails Pipeline, which would connect receipt points in multiple Oklahoma counties with interstate and intrastate natural gas pipeline markets in Bryan County, OK, and Lamar County, TX.

“The project is designed to address infrastructure constraints associated with the rapid development of natural gas from the prolific South Central Oklahoma Oil Province (SCOOP), the Stack, Granite Wash, Mississippian Lime, and Woodford Shale formations in the Greater Anadarko Basin and to offer supply diversity to meet growing demand for clean, efficient natural gas,” the companies said in open season documents.

Potential receipt points include DCP Okarche Plant, OFS Canadian Valley Plant, Enlink Cana Plant, Enable South Canadian Plant, DCP Chitwood Plant, OFS Knox Plant, Enable Bradley Plant, Woodford Express Grady Plant, and alternates.

The primary points of delivery would be at the Bennington and Lamar Hubs with potential interconnects at NGPL, Midcontinent Express Pipeline, Gulf Crossing Pipeline, ETC Fuels, ETC Houston Pipeline, Enlink Crosstex and Kinder Morgan North Texas Pipeline.

Southern Star and NextEra’s NextEra US Gas Assets LLC are forming a 50-50 joint venture for the project. An affiliate of NextEra Energy would construct the project and Southern Star, through one or more of its affiliates, would operate the pipeline.

The 250-mile Sooner Trails would extend from Kingfisher County and travel southeast to its primary delivery point in Lamar County with the development of the Lamar Hub. It would provide up to 1.2 million Dth/d of capacity to serve local distribution companies, industrial end-users, power generators and other regional demands.

The prefiling process for the project has begun at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

“The Sooner Trails Pipeline project will help alleviate constraints associated with the rapid development of natural gas from the SCOOP and STACK production plays and offer supply diversity to meet growing demand for clean, efficient natural gas in the region,” said Southern Star CEO Jerry Morris.

An open season for firm service on the pipeline runs through Sept. 18. If a binding open season is successful, Southern Star and NextEra anticipate Sooner Trails service to begin in early 2018.

Oklahoma natural gas production has been on a fairly steady upward trend since early 2011, according to U.S. Energy Information Administrationdata.

Late last year, NextEra unit Florida Power & Light Co. (FPL) was given permission by the Florida Public Service Commission to use ratepayer funds to invest in Oklahoma’s shale gas patch (see Shale Daily, Dec. 19, 2014). “From NextEra Energy’s perspective, we view the Sooner Trails Pipeline project as a standalone project consistent with our pipeline strategy,” a spokesman said Thursday. “This has no relationship to anything FPL is doing.”