Southern Natural Gas, a pipeline subsidiary of El Paso Corp., said Wednesday it filed an application with FERC to build its proposed Cypress Pipeline, a project that has been in mothballs for several years.

Southern Natural resurrected the Cypress pipeline project that would extend 176 miles from the company’s Elba Island LNG terminal in Georgia to Jacksonville, FL. The project was first proposed in 2000, but has been on the shelf since then.

The proposed Cypress Pipeline is a greenfield project that would open a new corridor from Georgia to the northern portion of Florida, where it would connect with Florida Gas Transmission (FGT), which is 50% owned by El Paso.

The project would include 166 miles of 24-inch diameter pipeline and 10 miles of 30-inch diameter pipe in the two states, and would have a capacity of 220 MMcf/d, a company spokesman said. It is targeted for in-service in mid-2007. The pipeline already has signed precedent agreements with Progress Energy Florida Inc. and BG LNG Services LLC.

Progress Energy has entered into a 20-year, $3.3 billion agreement with Southern Natural and FGT, as transportation providers, and with BG LNG Services to supply LNG-sourced natural gas to the company’s 461 MW Hines 4 combined-cycle generation facilities in Bartow, FL, as well as to satisfy its existing agreements.

BG Group, parent of BG LNG Services, holds the rights to the existing capacity at Southern Natural’s Elba Island terminal, which includes 675 MMcf/d of throughput capacity and 4 Bcf of storage capacity, an El Paso spokesman said.

Southern Natural is an 8,000-mile pipeline that extends from Texas to South Carolina and Tennessee, transporting up to 2.96 Bcf/d of natural gas.

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