Slowing demand and an existing surfeit of supply pipelines haven’t caused a number of major natural gas infrastructure projects in the West to pause or even slow down in their development, a panel of project backers told the LDC Forum Rockies & West Conference Tuesday in Irvine, CA. If anything, some of the proponents said they may have new capacity in place ahead of schedule.

In response to a question from the industry audience none of the panelists — Jeff Rush, vice president of TransCanada Pipelines; John Dushinske, vice president of marketing and regulatory affairs for Kern River Gas Transmission Co.; Laura Luce, president of NGS Energy; and Craig Coombs, business development for El Paso Western Pipelines — said they have considered the potential siting of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal along the U.S. West Coast as an inhibiting factor for their new pipeline and storage projects.

While stressing there are still a lot of unanswered questions about a myriad of gas pipeline project proposals from Alaska, Western Canada and various basins in the United States, TransCanada’s Portland, OR-based Rush stressed that there are factors lurking on the horizon that deal with climate change that could greatly inflate gas demand.

He cited TransCanada’s estimate that the added gas-fired power generation load to balance the intermittency of the prospective new wind power generation in the West equates to an added 9 Bcf/d of supplies by 2020. Similarly, massive conversion to natural gas-powered vehicles for transportation would mean an added 3 Bcf/d.

Despite market signals that called for less-than-anticipated added supplies, Kern River Gas Transmission from Wyoming to California has two expansions in the works that could add more than 400 MMcf/d of capacity to its system. The first increment — a 145 MMcf/d expansion handled entirely by added compression at the northern end of the pipeline in Wyoming — is scheduled to come on-line in November 2010, and Dushinske, Kern River’s marketing/regulatory affairs vice president, said the MidAmerican Energy Holdings company plans to accelerate that date considerably.

El Paso’s Coombs confirmed that an application for the proposed 680-mile, 42-inch diameter Ruby Pipeline with 1.3 Bcf/d of capacity, and probably more like 1.5 Bcf/d, will be filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) early next year, and it hopes to be in service from Wyoming to Malin, OR, in March 2011. Like Kern River’s estimates, he thinks that date may come sooner.

El Paso has 12 shippers lined up, including Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E), with collective capacity needs of 1.1 Bcf/d. By the time the line is built, Coombs said it will most likely be a 1.5 Bcf/d capacity.

With PG&E in Northern California as the anchor shipper on the line under a contract approved last Thursday by California regulators, El Paso is “pretty much ready to file in January” with FERC, said Coombs, a business development executive for El Paso’s western pipelines.

Like her fellow panelists, Luce cited global climate change as one of the drivers for NGS Energy’s proposed natural gas storage projects, particularly the Windy Hill facility in northeast Colorado, about 80 miles each from the Cheyenne and Denver hubs. The increasing push for renewable portfolio standard goals in states around the West and the rest of the nation is a growing driver for more gas storage, Luce said.

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