The Illinois-Wisconsin Express Project, a proposed pipeline toserve the southern Wisconsin market, has been put on indefinitehold reportedly due to the inability of an unnamed Wisconsinutility to commit to the project. News of this comes one day afterTransCanada Pipelines and Nicor Inc. disclosed they have scrappedplans to proceed with their reconfigured Voyageur Pipeline projectthat would have served the same market. (See Daily GPI, Nov. 4)

“The utility, I guess, is trying to strike their deal with theirgas suppliers, and they just have not been able to come back andgive firm commitments on what volumes they need and the type ofservice,” said Paula Delaney, a spokeswoman for El Paso Energy, oneof four coalition members that are financing the Express Project.The duration of the hold is “pretty dependent” on that Wisconsinutility, she added.

In the meantime, the coalition between El Paso, Enron, PeoplesEnergy and Northern Border Pipeline still exists, Delaney said.”But as long as it’s on hold each of the companies has kind of gotthe right to go out to see if they can generate their ownopportunities on that” market.

The problem with the Express Project, as well as Voyageur, isthe sponsors haven’t gotten it right yet, said a Wisconsin marketsource. “Apparently each of the projects haven’t been attractive toenough customers along the route to make it really work,” he toldNGI. But the source believes eventually some project will be builtalong the Joliet-to-southern Wisconsin route. “Sooner or latersomebody’s going to get it right, and they’re going to geteverybody signed up and bingo they’re going to go. But I have noidea who’s going to own it. I have no idea when they’re going toget it together and get the customers signed up. So far, it’s beenan excruciatingly slow process.”

In the final analysis, the differing routes of the competingprojects won’t mean a thing to southern Wisconsin shippers, henoted. “It’s going to be the services [and prices] that are offeredon there that’s going to distinguish one project from another.”

He believes the Voyageur project had other problems. “I thinkthat they weren’t serious about going to Wisconsin. I think thateven though it was labeled a Joliet-to-Wisconsin line, the sponsorsof that project were most interested in moving to Illinois. Theyhad a two-part rate that was priced as much to move it another 25miles into Wisconsin as it was to move into Illinois. You had tokind of conclude that they were building it for their own system.”

TransCanada and Nicor floated plans last July for thereconfigured Voyageur project, a 1 Bcf/d, 150-mile line that wouldhave extended from the Chicago hub north toward Milwaukee, WI. TheExpress Project planned to follow a similar path.

TransCanada and Nicor decided in mid-October to scrap therevised Voyageur project after a disappointing open season but didnot publicly announce the decision. Likewise, the decision to putthe Express Project on hold was made in September.

©Copyright 1998 Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. Thepreceding news report may not be republished or redistributed, inwhole or in part, in any form, without prior written consent ofIntelligence Press, Inc.