Stretching

Calling it a proposed transmission “superhighway,” American Electric Power (AEP) last Tuesday filed with FERC and PJM Interconnection to build a new 765-kV transmission line stretching from West Virginia to New Jersey. The projected cost is approximately $3 billion.

Owners of transmission systems stretching across several Southeastern states have signed a memorandum of understanding to develop a regional transmission organization (RTO) for the region. If the transmission owners prove successful in their efforts to develop the RTO, it would be one of the nation’s largest, covering more than 39,000 miles of transmission lines with an investment in assets in excess of $6 billion.

An attempt to score a quick tax-cut coup is stretching out into a federal case for TransCanada PipeLines Ltd., with governments that stand to lose the money being offered a chance to put up a fight. The National Energy Board has put off deciding even whether it has to approve the action until TransCanada explains itself much more fully. At the same time, the NEB is working on a procedure for collecting reactions by the provincial governments which stand to lose money as a result of the scheme. All have been officially informed by the board.

A shroud of desperation enveloped California officials Monday, stretching from the state Capitol in Sacramento, west to San Francisco, and south to Los Angeles as regulators and a federal bankruptcy judge wrestled with the state’s electricity crisis, but with no indication of when and how the battle will end.

A direct, express pipeline stretching all the way to Chicago from Prudhoe Bay is among the options being considered for tapping Arctic natural gas by the three principal production companies operating in Alaska. The mammoth possibility was disclosed in the Canadian gas capital of Calgary, to a conference of the Canadian Energy Research Institute, by the North American Natural Gas Pipeline Group.

The yet-to-be-completed Destin Pipeline is growing with plansfor two extensions to its system in the eastern Gulf of Mexicoproduction area. Destin Pipeline Co. announced two contiguousextensions, with a total estimated cost of $52 million, will servetwo development projects that recently dedicated production tothe1 Bcf/d Destin.