Carry

Williams and Dominion are joining forces to develop the Keystone Connector pipeline, which would carry up to 1 Bcf/d from the Rockies Express Pipeline (REX) terminus in Ohio to eastern and Mid-Atlantic markets. Under the proposal announced Monday, the sponsors want to place the 240-mile pipeline into service by 2013.

Enbridge Inc. has completed a successful nonbinding open season for its proposed interstate LaCrosse Pipeline, the company said Wednesday. The pipe would carry 1-1.8 Bcf/d of growing regional gas supplies from the company’s Carthage Hub in East Texas to an interconnect with Southern Natural Gas in southeastern Louisiana.

FERC has approved construction and operation of a 24-inch diameter pipeline by Northwest Pipeline GP in Colorado to carry gas from the Piceance Basin to Northwest’s on-system and off-system markets, Northwest parent Williams said Monday.

FERC has issued favorable environmental assessments to CenterPoint Energy Gas Transmission Co. (CEGT) and Williams’ Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line (Transco) to carry out mostly compression expansions of their pipeline systems.

Speculation was put to rest Thursday that El Paso Corp.’s Ruby Pipeline project might not be a go. The 680-mile pipeline project remains on track for completion in 2011 to carry constrained natural gas supplies from the Rockies to the West Coast.

TransCanada Corp. has completed a successful binding open season for firm transportation service to carry 378 MMcf/d of shale natural gas supplies from the Horn River basin north of Fort Nelson, BC, to its Alberta System, the company said Thursday.

TransCanada Corp. has settled some old business that could have been a stumbling block to development of a long-haul pipeline to carry Alaska North Slope natural gas to Lower 48 markets. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission recognized the surrender of a certificate issued in 1977 to TransCanada subsidiary Alaskan Northwest Natural Gas Transportation Co. In the opinion of some, that certificate for a gasline project that never got built could have created a $9 billion liability to the subsidiary’s former partners to be borne by future shippers on the Lower 48 pipeline. While it was lobbying last year for the state concession to build the pipeline under the state’s Alaska Gasline Inducement Act process, TransCanada said the so-called “withdrawn partners liability” was a nonissue. Even if old legal business is not going to do in the company’s pipeline plans, current market circumstances still could. Weak gas prices and burgeoning Lower 48 gas production, as well as the potential for stepped-up imports of liquefied natural gas, all are causing some to question the economics of a Lower 48 gasline.

A coalition of citizens’ groups in British Columbia (BC) has called for a time-out on all coalbed methane (CBM) drilling in the province until safety and environmental issues are more thoroughly addressed.

A coalition of citizens’ groups in British Columbia (BC) has called for a time-out on all coalbed methane (CBM) drilling in the province until safety and environmental issues are more thoroughly addressed.