Texas Eastern Transmission (Tetco) told shippers Thursday that it is in the process of building its new interconnection with Discovery Gas Transmission near the Larose Compressor Station that will open the door to about 250,000 Dth/d of offshore gas supply that, absent processing at the Discovery Larose Processing Plant, would not be accepted due to quality concerns. The connection is expected to be available prior to Nov. 30.

Because of supply constraints caused by hurricane damage to Dynegy’s Venice Gas Processing Plant in southern Louisiana, Tetco and other major Gulf Coast interstate pipelines have sought transportation alternatives to undamaged gas processing facilities. Discovery Gas Transmission LLC, an 800 MMcf/d offshore pipeline that is operated by Williams and jointly owned by Williams and Duke Energy Field Services, has take several actions this month to be part of the gas transportation solution in the Gulf.

Discovery received approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission earlier this month to construct the new Tetco receipt point at Larose in Lafourche Parish, LA (Docket No. EM06-1-000) (see Daily GPI, Oct. 13). And earlier this week Discovery started its second expedited open season for limited-term firm transportation service for gas entering via an interconnect with Tennessee Gas Pipeline. Discovery said it plans to provide up to 250,000 Dth of additional capacity to customers on Tennessee Gas Pipeline’s 500 Line in Terrebonne Parish, LA (see Daily GPI, Oct. 25, 2005).

Texas Eastern said it will operate its Venice-to-Larose system as a hydrocarbon wet pipeline and will connect the line to Discovery’s gathering system so that gas can be processed at the Discovery plant. Tetco will contract for 250,000 Dth/d of firm service with Discovery and will use it as Tetco’s “operational capacity.”

Service on Discovery will continue until at least March 31, 2006 or the reactivation of the Venice processing plant facility, whichever is earlier, the company said. Tetco applied the same time frame in an announcement that it is waiving the gas quality standards under Section 5 of its tariff general terms and conditions with certain conditions.

Tetco said that as of Thursday it had about 17 meters not available for flow on its Cameron system offshore southwest Louisiana. They represented about 38,000 Dth/d of flowing gas prior to Hurricane Rita. Tetco expects these meters will be available for flow again by Nov. 7. Another nine meters, representing about 150,000 Dth/d of supply before Hurricane Katrina, are not available for flow on the South Pass system offshore southeast Louisiana.

It expects six of those nine meters to become available prior to Nov. 30 when it will be able to receive unprocessed volumes on the South Pass system for processing on the Venice line with the planned connection to Discovery’s Larose processing plant. It is anticipated that the three other meters will be repaired and made available to the operator by the end of the year.

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