Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. recently filed with FERC to expandits 300-Line, bringing Central New York Oil & Gas’ Stagecoachstorage project closer to completion. The El Paso-owned subsidiaryasked the commission to rule on the $86.5 million expansionproposal by Dec. 31, 2000 so that the facilities can be operationalin line with the proposed storage project’s in-service date of Aug.1, 2001.

The filing requests permission to build a lateral, called theStagecoach Lateral, from the proposed field in Tioga County, NY toTennessee’s 300-Line near Compressor Station 15 in Bradford County,PA. The 30-inch lateral would have a capacity of 500,000 Dth/d, andexpansion capabilities of up to 1 Bcf/d. The filing also proposedto expand the available capacity on the 300-Line from theCompressor Station 319 to the Clinton Road delivery point by 90,000Dth/d to accommodate the new demand.

Tennessee said CYNOG picked the 300-Line because of severalreasons. “CYNOG informed Tennessee that its decision was based onthe fact that Tennessee offered several unique advantages: (1)close proximity to the field (the 300-Line is located 20 milessouth of the proposed site). (2) the ability to offer significantsupply diversity from essentially every important supply basinincluding the Gulf of Mexico, eastern and western Canada, as wellas Chicago via access to Midwestern Gas Transmission Co. systemand (3) significant market access connections in the Northeast.”

CYNOG originally filed its application for the project lastNovember. The commission, however, told the company to resubmit theproposal once Tennessee filed its application. Both filings weremade Dec. 30.

Initially, the Stagecoach storage field would have a working gascapacity of 10-12 Bcf, with withdrawal rates of up to 500 MMcf/dand injection rates of 250 MMcf/d. Depending on market conditions,the field’s working gas capacity could reach 13.6 Bcf. CYNOG owns100% of the leasehold interests in the two depleted gas field poolsthat will be converted into the project as well as 80% of the gasrights in those pools.

In two open season’s held by Tennessee for capacity fromStagecoach, CYNOG’s affiliate, eCorp, submitted “the best bid,”according to Tennessee. The developer of high-deliverability gasstorage facilities subscribed for a total of 400,000 Dth/d of firmtransportation on the lateral and all 90,000 Dth/d of firmtransportation on the 300-Line.

Approval of this field could have major implications for theNortheast gas grid, according to John F. Thrash, president and CEOof eCorp. In an interview last year Thrash said Stagecoach couldhave major effects on large projects attempting to bring gas to theNortheast (see NGI, June 14). Stagecoach would do this by “greatlyenhanc[ing]” the ability of existing Northeast pipelines such asColumbia, Tennessee Pipeline’s 300 Line, Transcontinental Gas PipeLine’s Leidy Line and CNG Transmission’s system to better serve thedownstream market, he noted. “There is an intrinsicunderutilization of all of those pipes…..They even testified atthe [FERC conference last week] that they’re not running at 100%load factor on average, and there are moments in time when they areway below average. And so this is an opportunity to use that unusedcapacity.”

John Norris

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