Trans-Union Pipeline L.P., a subsidiary of Panda Energy Intl.,said yesterday it has contracted Willbros Group, Inc. to build oneof the largest single-project pipelines in North America. Willbroswas hired to engineer and construct a 42-mile, 30-inch natural gaspipeline to supply at least 430,000 Dth/d of gas to a planned 2,700MW gas-fired facility in southern Arkansas. Willbros estimated thevalue of the construction contract at $30 million.

Plans for the pipeline were announced last December (see Daily GPI,Dec. 23, 1999). Project completion isscheduled for third quarter 2001.

The plant, which will be located on a 310-acre site in ElDorado, AR, will be near the Entergy Corp. system adjacent to a 500kV switching station, enabling it to sell power to wholesalemarkets in Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas.

The power plant is targeted for in-service in spring of 2002,according to the application filed at FERC last December.

The Arkansas plant is not the only major power facility projectPanda is involved in. In April of last year, Panda Energy and asubsidiary of Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG) announced ajoint venture to build a 1,000 MW combined cycle gas plant inGuadalupe County in South Central Texas. The project is slated tostart construction this summer and be completed by January 2001.

Plans for two other Texas facilities are also in the works,representing an additional 2,000 MW of power generation. Totalinvestment in the three plants initially will be about $1.3 billionfinanced with both debt and equity.

Panda Energy has about 410 MW of generation capacity inoperation; 2,150 MW of capacity under construction; and about 7,800MW in advanced development. It has confined its generationactivities mostly to the U.S. — Texas, Maryland, Pennsylvania andArkansas, for example — but it is now reaching out tointernational markets, such as China, Nepal and Brazil.

Willbros Group, Inc. is one of the leading independentcontractors serving the oil and gas industry, providingconstruction, engineering and other specialty oilfield-relatedservices to industry and government entities. Its list of clientsincludes Tenaska, CMS Energy and El Paso.

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