Enterprise Products Partners LP’s $1.5 billion, 270-mile Acadian Haynesville Extension pipeline has entered service, linking producers in the Haynesville/Bossier shale play with new markets.

Enterprise spokesman Rick Rainey told NGI the pipeline’s starting incremental takeaway capacity is 1.8 Bcf/d and that producers have already signed firm 10-year contracts for 1.6 Bcf/d of capacity. He added that the company would need new equipment to expand the pipeline’s capacity to 2.1 Bcf/d, but it was unclear if additional land would also be needed.

“Depending on what the needs of the producers are, we could be in a position to meet their needs,” Rainey said Monday. “We have three compressor stations and we would not have to build another one. We would just need to add more horsepower at the existing facilities.”

Originally envisioned as a 249-mile pipeline with 30- and 36-inch diameter sections (see Daily GPI, Oct. 29, 2009), Rainey said the project’s size and capacity was expanded and its configuration changed to include 20-, 24-, 36- and 42-inch diameter sections based upon interest from producers. He added that the pipeline was also extended by 20 miles as a result of minor changes in the original proposed route and to accommodate a new pipeline interconnect.

“In addition to providing producers with a timely and flexible solution, the Acadian Haynesville Extension has also created benefits for the region, the state and the country by providing jobs, additional tax revenues and more supplies of domestic energy,” said Enterprise CEO Michael Creel.

The Haynesville Extension serves as an extension of the existing Acadian system, which provides producers access to more than 150 end-use markets along the Mississippi River industrial corridor between Baton Rouge, LA, and New Orleans, as well as the Henry Hub. The pipeline also features interconnections with 12 interstate pipeline systems and the only southerly bypass of the Perryville Hub.

The 12 interstate systems to which the new pipeline connects are Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line, Texas Eastern Transmission, Florida Gas Transmission, Trunkline, ANR, Tennessee Gas Pipeline, Texas Gas Transmission, Columbia Gulf, Southern, Tiger, Gulf South and CenterPoint.

©Copyright 2011Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news reportmay not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in anyform, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.