TransColorado Gas Transmission has filed an application at FERC seeking the go-ahead for a system expansion to provide 300,000 Dth/d of increased firm transportation out of the Piceance Basin to a proposed interconnection with Wyoming Interstate Co. (WIC) at the Greasewood Hub in Colorado.

The “North Expansion Project” calls for the installation of a back-pressure regulator valve to accommodate northbound flows of natural gas on 46 miles of pipeline between DeBeque, CO, and the Greasewood Hub in Rio Blanco County, as well as new north-end compression, some pipe, bi-directional turbine meters and associated facilities.

TransColorado, a pipeline subsidiary of Kinder Morgan, requested that FERC approve the project by May 27 of this year so that it can be placed into service by Jan. 1, 2006.

“The pace of gas production in the Rocky Mountains has increased dramatically. Insufficient capacity exists, however, to move these natural gas supplies to market. It is in the public interest, therefore, to address this proposal as expeditiously as possible, particularly where TransColorado’s proposal does not require the construction of large new linear pipeline facilities and only involves the use of minimal new rights-of-way in an area that is remote from private landowners,” the pipeline told FERC [CP05-45].

Traditionally, TransColorado’s system has operated with a north to south flow, with the majority of the deliveries on the system going to the Blanco Hub in northwestern New Mexico. But with the emergence of the Piceance Basin as a prolific Rocky Mountain production field, shippers are now seeking to transport “significant additional volumes” of gas northward to the Greasewood Hub where TransColorado interconnects with several existing and proposed interstate gas pipelines, the pipeline said.

The proposed facilities, once fully operational, would permit TransColorado to deliver up to 300,000 Dth/d of gas from the Piceance gas supply basin to high-pressure interconnecting pipelines at the Greasewood Hub.

Following completion of the project, shippers will be able to transport gas south, as they do now, to the San Juan Basin and on to markets in the Southwest and California, or north to the new WIC connection and then to the Cheyenne Hub in northeastern Colorado and the recently completed Cheyenne Plains pipeline, among others, and then on to Midwestern and Midcontinent markets. The estimated cost of the project is $20 million.

In addition to the back-pressure regulator valve, the project calls for the construction of two 1,000 horsepower compressor units and one 2,061 hp compressor unit at the proposed new Greasewood Compressor Station; approximately 2,200 feet of 24-inch diameter pipeline; one 12-inch bi-directional turbine meter on the discharge side of the proposed Greasewood Compressor Station for deliveries to WIC; two 12-inch turbine meters at the Raccoon Hollow Meter Station in Mesa County, CO; and associated facilities.

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