Enbridge Energy Partners LP and Atmos Pipeline and Storage LLC are launching an open season Monday to solicit firm transportation for Barnett Intrastate Gas (BIG) Pipeline, which, as proposed, would carry up to 1 Bcf/d and connect Atmos’ Line X in Johnson County, TX, to Enbridge’s Double D and Clarity pipes at Bethel, TX, in Anderson County.

BIG Pipeline would bridge the two companies’ systems and offer shippers access to gas supplies from the Waha, Barnett Shale, Bossier Sands and Anadarko Basin producing regions, they said. Delivery points would include market options at Enbridge’s Carthage Hub in Panola County for Natural Gas Pipeline Company of America (NGPL), Texas Gas Transmission, Gulf South, Tennessee Gas Pipeline, CenterPoint and Texas Eastern Transmission.

Delivery points also would be offered at Enbridge’s Southeast Texas Hub in Orange County through NGPL, Kinder Morgan Tejas, Gulf South, Kinder Morgan Texas, Trunkline Gas, Florida Gas and Entergy.

“As more and more drilling occurs in the prolific Barnett Shale of North Texas, this 100-mile natural gas transmission pipeline, with a capacity of up to 1 Bcf/d, will help Enbridge and Atmos Energy avoid constraints on their respective systems, and it will increase reliable supplies of natural gas,” said Terrance L. McGill, president of Enbridge Energy Co. Inc., the general partner of Enbridge Energy Partners. Transportation for shippers “would be seamless all the way across the system.”

Backers of the Midcontinent Express Pipeline (MEP), which would give gas shale producers in Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma access to southern and eastern markets, said last month that they had completed a binding open season for a 300,000 Dth/d expansion for a portion of the 1.8 Bcf/d planned system (see Daily GPI, July 30). MEP is a joint venture of Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP and Energy Transfer Partners LP.

Atmos in July also completed a nonbinding open season for services at its proposed Fort Necessity salt dome gas storage project in Franklin Parish, LA, which is located in northeastern Louisiana. Participants were said to request more than three times the 5 Bcf of capacity proposed for the project’s first phase (see Daily GPI, July 14).

The open season for the BIG Pipeline launches at noon CDT Monday and will close at 5 p.m. CDT on Sept. 17. For information, contact Enbridge’s Mark DeRusse at (713) 821-6195 or mark.derusse@enbridge.com; or Steve Marsh (713) 821-2084 or steve.marsh@enbridge.com; or Atmos’ Vic DeVincenzo at (214) 206-2510 or vic.devincenzo@atmosenergy.com.

Calgary-based Enbridge Energy Partners’ gas gathering, treating, processing and transmission assets, which are principally located onshore in the U.S. Midcontinent and Gulf Coast area, deliver around 3 Bcf/d. Atmos, headquartered in Dallas, serves about 3.2 million gas distribution customers in more than 1,600 communities in 12 states from the Blue Ridge Mountains in the East to the Rocky Mountains in the West.

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