FERC issued favorable preliminary determinations (PD) on non-environmental grounds for two Northwest Pipeline expansion projects and East Tennessee Natural Gas’ Patriot project last week, and approved an amendment to the Gulfstream Natural Gas System LLC pipeline certificate that will allow the Florida pipeline system to be completed in two phases.

Northwest Pipeline won PDs for its $154.3 million Rockies expansion project, which will involve the addition of 91 miles of pipeline looping on segments of its mainline and 24,924 hp of new compression in Wyoming and Idaho, and for its $239.8 million Evergreen expansion in Washington state. The Rockies project is designed to expand physical north-flow capacity and to replace existing north-flow displacement capacity. It will replace 175,000 Dth/d of required north-flow displacement volumes from the Muddy Creek compressor station in Wyoming to an interconnect with PG&E Gas Transmission-Northwest at Stanfield, OR, as well as all 191,000 Dth/d of north-flow displacement capacity from the Green River compressor to Muddy Creek [CP01-438].

The north-flow displacement capacity between Green River and Muddy Creek will no longer be available after Oct. 31, 2003. Northwest has had to rely heavily on displaced capacity over the years to move gas supplies northward to market areas in the Pacific Northwest due to the limited availability of northbound capacity on its system. The Rockies project is intended to reduce the need for Northwest to routinely invoke operational flow orders (OFOs) on its system to account for this shortfall.

Northwest’s Evergreen project will include 27.29 miles of 36-inch diameter looping of existing mainline in three Washington counties: Skagit, Pierce and King. Along with the looping, it plans to add 91,580 hp of compression at existing stations to increase firm capacity on the system from the Canadian border at Sumas, WA, south to Chehalis, WA, by 220,514 Dth/d. Northwest said it has obtained an additional 56,111 Dth/d for the project via turned-back and reserve capacity, making the total project capacity 276,625 Dth/d. The project is designed to serve five new power plants to be sited along the border [CP02-4].

The Evergreen expansion also is expected to decrease Northwest’s reliance on displacement capacity, and its need to resort to OFOs to keep its system in balance.

Separately, East Tennessee won PD approval for its $289 million Patriot expansion/extension project that would serve new power generation facilities, regions currently without gas service (southwestern Virginia) and traditional demand growth in Virginia and North Carolina. The project would boost East Tennessee’s existing design capacity of 700 MMcf/d to more than 1.2 Bcf/d, with the capacity increases coming in three stages. Initial service is expected to begin on May 1, 2003, and all facilities are due to be completed on Jan. 1, 2004.

The news wasn’t all good for East Tennessee last week, however. Chairman Pat Wood warned the pipeline that he won’t sign off on a certificate for Patriot if East Tennessee doesn’t resolve the “substantial” landowner opposition to project (See Related Story).

In the Sunshine State, the phased construction of the Gulfstream Natural Gas project will allow a portion of the system to go into service June 1, 2002 and the remainder to be installed on or about June 1, 2003, but no later than Feb. 21, 2004. This will enable Gulfstream to coordinate with the timing of new power plants and gas market growth in Florida. Gulfstream sponsors Williams Companies and Duke Energy initially had planned to have the entire pipeline project up and running by June 2002.

Phase I will include the 431-mile offshore segment of the pipeline, extending from Mobile Bay, AL, under the Gulf of Mexico to Tampa, as well as 157 miles of onshore facilities in Manatee and Hardee Counties in western Florida, and Polk County in central Florida. The entire 1.1 Bcf/d capacity of the pipeline will be available to Phase I customers in June. Phase II will include about 165 miles of pipeline facilities in the Highlands, St. Lucie, Okeechobee and Martin Counties in the central and southern half of the Sunshine State. The pipeline project was approved by FERC in February 2001.

Gulfstream also got the go-ahead to install three 37,900 hp natural gas turbines at its compressor station in Mobile County, AL, rather than the initially requested four 32,000 hp gas turbines.

In addition, Gulfstream received FERC clearance to modify its initial recourse rates to take into account the phased in-service dates, as well as a slight increase in its capital-cost estimate for the project to $1.67 billion from $1.65 billion. The Gulfstream project, when completed, will offer Florida gas customers pipeline-on-pipeline competition for the first time ever. Florida Gas Transmission (FGT), which is jointly held by El Paso Corp. and Enron Corp., has long dominated the gas transportation market in the state.

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