Williams apparently still has the western pipeline expansion fever. The company announced the fourth expansion project in the Pacific Northwest for Northwest Pipeline and all four are expected to be in service in the next two years. This latest project, Evergreen, is a mainline expansion that will add 276 MMcf/d to serve new power generation in Washington. The $200 million looping and compression project will include the addition of 26 miles of pipeline in Skagit, King and Pierce counties and 90,000 hp of compression at eight existing stations.

“We knew there was interest in an expansion on our transmission system in the Pacific Northwest,” said Kirk Morgan, director of business development for Northwest. “The advantage of this project is that Williams is able to get a large volume of natural gas to electric generation facilities where it is critically needed using existing Northwest Pipeline facilities and rights of way.”

Williams held an open season in December to test the market for the project. It plans to file an application for a FERC certificate in September. Construction is slated to begin in summer of 2002 with an in-service date of June 2003.

This is Williams’ fourth expansion project in the region. Previous projects include Georgia Strait Crossing, Grays Harbor and Everett Delta (see Daily GPI, April 16; Dec. 14, 2000; and March 23, 2000). Georgia Strait is an 85-mile international pipeline extension from Sumas, WA, to Vancouver Island, BC, that is designed to serve two proposed new cogeneration plants on the island. The $120 million project would transport about 100 MMcf/d.

Grays Harbor is a lateral that would extend off of Northwest’s mainline near Vail. It is being designed primarily to serve a new electric generation plant Duke Energy is building in the Sarsop Development park near Elma, WA. The first 36 miles of the 48-mile line would parallel Northwest’s existing Olympia and McCleary laterals. So far, Duke has signed an agreement for 161,500 Dth/d of firm capacity on the lateral, which is scheduled to be in service in November 2002.

The Everett Delta project also is a lateral. The nine-mile, 20-inch lateral pipeline in Snohomish County, WA, would deliver gas to a proposed FPL Energy 248 MW gas-fired power plant about 45 miles northwest of Seattle. The lateral also would deliver gas to the distribution system of Puget Sound Energy. Capacity would be about 133,000 Dth/d, and the cost is pegged at $17.2 million. The project is scheduled to be in service in August 2002. The Northwest Pipeline system’s design capacity is currently 2.9 Bcf/d.

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