Citing a need to meet future growth in the region, NW Natural, agas utility serving 477,000 customers in Washington, announcedplans to build a 52-mile, 24-inch pipeline from its existingfacilities near North Plains, WA, to the Williams Gas Pipeline inMolalla, WA. The company said yesterday it has filed a notice ofintent with the Energy Facility Siting Council (EFSC), a divisionof the Oregon Department of Energy. The total cost for the newpipeline, which NW Natural said would be complete by 2004, is $58million.

Deston Nokes, a NW Natural spokesman, said the pipeline project,called Phase IV and V of the South Mist Feeder project, is thelargest in the company’s history. It will complete NW Natural’s gastransmission pipeline between the Mist Gas Storage Field inColumbia County and NW Natural’s Molalla gate station on WilliamsPipeline Co.’s transmission line, and will have a capacity of 200MMcf/d. Completion will allow gas withdrawn from the undergroundstorage in Mist to supply customers in the rapidly growing areasnear Hillsboro, Forest Grove, Newberg, Sherwood, Tigard, Tualatin,Wilsonville, Donald, Aurora and Canby, the company said.

Phase IV (the northern two-thirds of the corridor) is 32-mileslong and is scheduled to be operational by Nov. 1, 2002. Phase V(the southern third) is 20 miles long and is scheduled to beoperational by Nov. 1, 2004. Both phases will be addressed in asingle EFSC Site Certificate Application to be filed next summer.

Phase IV and Phase V are part of an overall Mist storageexpansion that was started over 10 years ago. The $130-$135 milliondollar project will expand the field’s storage capacity from 8.5Bcf to 17 Bcf. It will also increase NW Natural’s pipeline capacityfrom 100 MMcf/d to 300 MMcf/d.

John Norris

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