The gas industry might very well see another trading point inthe Garden City discharge facility of the Nautilus Pipeline. “We’vegot just about everybody connected that we initially planned to.We’re in negotiations with Columbia, and we’re finishing upnegotiations with Koch and ANR,” Nautilus President Bill Hastingstold NGI. Connections with Koch and ANR are expected this summer.Columbia also should be on line this summer, he said. A total ofseven pipeline interconnects are completed or planned right now.Currently, Louisiana Intrastate Gas, Acadian, Texas Gas, andCypress are connected. Trunkline has expressed interest, andTennessee also is in the vicinity of Garden City. “Sonat is alsovery interested, but the distance is prohibitive at the moment, andwe’re trying to work with that,” Hastings said. Ultimately, theNautilus terminus could see as many as 10 interconnects. Hastingswould not disclose Nautilus’ current throughput. “We havecommitments in the deep-water. We expect to be very close to fullin 2001. He alluded to gas processing capabilities but would notdiscuss plans.

“I think in the end down the road, we plan to look at thepossibility of setting up the plant discharge facility as a hub tomove volumes among different pipelines themselves. We are notapproved to do that, but we are considering doing that in thefuture. We have to get FERC approval along with the pipelineapprovals.”

Nautilus is owned by Shell and Marathon. Hastings is manager ofproject development for Marathon.

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