Expansion

While Questar continues preliminary work on its California-boundmainline, Kern River Pipeline has put its plans to run a newlarge-diameter pipeline into Southern California on hold, awaitingregulatory action from the dilatory California Public UtilitiesCommission.

Transco extended Thursday the open season for FT service on itsSundance Expansion Project, originally scheduled to end June 1,through June 18. Sundance will provide extra capacity from Station65 in Louisiana to Station 165 in Virginia and is proposed to beginservice by April 1,2002.

Williams told the North Carolina Utilities Commission Wednesdayit may seek contribution from North Carolina’s $200 million of newnatural gas bond funds to provide natural gas from its Transcopipeline to five counties in northeastern North Carolina.

The fate of the Millennium, Independence, SupplyLink andMarketLink pipeline expansion projects, which together representabout 1.7 Bcf/d of new pipeline capacity directed at northeasternmarkets from the Midwest, have been scheduled for discussion onlyat FERC’s next regular meeting March 10. That move has sparked aconsiderable degree of speculation among FERC observers andpipeline representatives.

FERC last week gave Petal Gas Storage the go-ahead to double thecertificated capacity of its storage facilities in Mississippi to10.4 Bcf. Petal Gas would accomplish this by drilling, leaching anddeveloping a second underground salt dome storage cavern identicalto its existing cavern. The proposed storage cavern would have thesame certificated capacity as the existing cavern (5.2 Bcf), andboth would have a combined actual working gas capacity of 5.8 Bcf.

Serving a projected 30 Tcf natural gas market in 2010 willrequire “substantial” expansion of the existing interstate pipelineand storage infrastructure, but the level of construction isn’texpected to be out of line with what the two areas have experiencedin recent years, according to a study released last week by INGAAFoundation Inc. This means that pipe and compressor manufacturersand construction contractors shouldn’t face any problems in meetingthe demand, it said.

FERC last week gave conditional approval to a major expansionand upgrade of Jackson Prairie Storage that would add 3.2 Bcf ofworking gas capacity and would boost the firm deliverability rateof the Pacific Northwest storage facility by 300 MMcf/d, both ofwhich would heighten its peak-shaving capabilities.

In an 11th-hour move yesterday, California regulators delayeduntil August a proposed interim action that would expand naturalgas unbundling and set an aggressive schedule for a final gasrestructuring decision by year end. The proposal, which includesunbundling billing and eliminating any restrictions on current gasaggregation among residential and small business customers, will beconsidered when the California PUC meets again Aug. 6.

Williams announced its Mid-America Pipeline subsidiary willexpand its natural gas liquids (NGL) pipeline system in the RockyMountains from 75,000 b/d to 125,000 b/d. The expansion involvesthe construction of a 412-mile pipeline that extends from DaggettCounty in northeast Utah to near Bloomfield, NM. The new line runsparallel to the existing Mid-America system. Construction isscheduled to begin in August, with an initial in service date ofJan. 1, 1999.