FERC Tuesday issued a favorable environmental assessment (EA) for the proposed ETC Tiger Pipeline that would provide takeaway capacity from the increasingly constrained Carthage Hub in East Texas and the Haynesville Shale play to markets in the Midwest, Northeast and Southeast.

“Approval of the proposed project, with appropriate mitigating measures, would not constitute a major federal action significantly affecting the quality of the human environment,” concluded the staff of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and other cooperating federal and state agencies, in the EA on the interstate gas pipeline project [CP09-460].

ETC Tiger Pipeline Co. LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Energy Transfer Partners LP, proposes to build a 175-mile, 42-inch diameter pipeline that would extend from an interconnection with Houston Pipe Line (an intrastate) in Panola County, TX, and follow in an easterly direction to the Perryville Hub in Richland Parish, LA.

The pipeline would have the capacity to transport up to 2 Bcf/d of natural gas from East Texas and Northwest Louisiana, particularly from the Haynesville Shale, Bossier Sands and Fort Worth Basin production areas, according to ETC Tiger and the EA. The company said it expects to receive a FERC certificate in either February or March. In service is targeted for either the first or second quarter of 2011.

The proposed new line would interconnect with seven existing interstate pipelines: Texas Eastern Transmission, Tennessee Gas Pipeline, Texas Gas Transmission, Trunkline Gas, ANR Pipeline, Columbia Gulf Transmission and Southeast Supply Header LLC.

The entire capacity to be created by the ETC Tiger Pipeline is under agreement to several shippers, including Chesapeake Energy Marketing Inc., EnCana Marketing (USA), Questar Exploration and Production Co. and Tristate North Louisiana Midstream LLC.

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