Budding

A new round of expansion is getting under way in the buddingnatural gas industry in eastern Canada, starting with constructionof the last missing link in the country’s transcontinental pipelinegrid. Longer range, there are possibilities of a new majorpipeline to transport Atlantic Canada production to major markets.

Carolina Power and Light (CP&L) scaled back its plans toserve the budding electricity load in North Carolina yesterday byannouncing the replacement of its $175 million interstate PalmettoPipeline proposal with a $100 million 82-mile intrastate pipelineproject. The integrated energy company plans to build the new pipebetween Iredell and Richmond counties to serve an electric powerplant soon to be under construction. If CP&L gets its way, thenew pipe will be in service by the spring of 2001.