Just in time for the current onslaught of heat in the Southwest, Salt Lake City-based Questar Corp. quietly over the July 4 holiday weekend brought to full capacity the eastern portion of its converted oil-to-natural gas Southern Trails interstate pipeline from Blanco Hub in northwest New Mexico. A western portion in California remained untouched, needing state regulatory changes to help boost market interest, or face potential sale to another energy firm.

The pipeline unit of Questar reported that its $100 million, 16-inch-diameter pipeline reached its full 80 MMcf/d capacity July 5, bringing new supplies from the Rockies and northern New Mexico’s San Juan Basin to the California-Arizona border. The eastern portion covers 490 miles of the 700-mile pipeline, linking to multiple delivery points at its western terminus near the California border.

The steel pipeline was originally built to move crude oil to Southern California refineries in and around the port of Long Beach, CA. Questar’s pipeline unit bought the idle oil pipeline in 1998 with the intention of converting it to transport natural gas.

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