TransColorado Gas Transmission announced plans last week to move forward with an expansion project designed to provide 300,000 Dth/d of increased firm transportation out of the Piceance Basin to a proposed interconnection with Wyoming Interstate Co. at the Greasewood Hub in Colorado.

TransColorado said the project is supported by a long term contract with an unnamed shipper for 280,000 Dth/d of transportation capacity. The contract runs through 2015 with an option for a five-year extension.

The project would involve a flow reversal on the northern part of the TransColorado system. Gas flow would be reversed on the 46-miles of the pipeline between DeBeque, CO, and the Greasewood Hub in Rio Blanco County, by modifying existing interconnections and installing a new north-end compressor station for a total cost of $20 million.

Following completion of the project, shippers will be able to transport gas south, as they do now, to the San Juan Basin and on to markets in the Southwest and California, or north to the new WIC connection and then onto the Cheyenne Hub and the new Cheyenne Plains pipeline, among others, and then on to Midwestern and Midcontinent markets. The TransColorado project is expected to be completed in January 2006.

“This expansion project demonstrates the flexibility of the TransColorado system and will be an important piece of infrastructure for handling increased natural gas volumes from the Piceance Basin to the Midwest and other key markets,” said Richard Kinder, CEO of Kinder Morgan Inc., which owns TransColorado. Kinder noted that a $33 million expansion went into service in August on TransColorado, raising southbound capacity to 425,000 Dth/d from 300,000 Dth/d. Total long-haul capacity is nearly completely subscribed through 2007, the company said.

However, rising production in the Piceance Basin from Williams, EnCana and other producers is driving several projects that will transport gas east, including this TransColorado expansion, EnCana’s Entrega Pipeline and others.

The Cheyenne Plains system, a 380 mile 36-inch diameter pipeline from the Cheyenne Hub in northeastern Colorado to Greensburg, KS, has received regulatory approvals, is under construction and is expected to begin transporting up to 560,000 Dth/d of gas in January. The pipeline will provide significant new takeaway pipeline capacity to a region that has been capacity constrained for years.

Meanwhile, TransColorado also announced on Friday that it is offering shippers an opportunity to bid on 74,500 Dth/d of firm transportation capacity in two packages that will become available at the end of October when two contracts expire. Each contract is subject to a prearranged bid of 26 cents/Dth for a term of five years. The company said the prearranged bid does not include an option for the current shipper to match higher bids.

The primary receipt and delivery points for both packages are Raccoon Hollow near DeBeque, CO, and the Blanco Hub in northwestern New Mexico. However, the Kinder Morgan subsidiary said it would consider alternative receipt and delivery points. For additional information on the TransColorado capacity, contact Steve Irizarry at (303) 763-3473.

In another Rocky Mountain pipeline development on Friday, Questar Pipeline told shippers during the week that it is exploring the possibility of constructing a pipeline from the Wamsutter Area of southeastern Wyoming to interconnect with the south terminus of Northern Border Pipeline’s proposed Bison Pipeline project near Gillette, WY. Northern Border’s 325-mile Bison Pipeline would transport 375,000 and 500,000 MMBtu/d of gas from Deadhorse, WY in the Powder River Basin to Northern Border’s 42-inch diameter mainline at its CS 6 compressor station in North Dakota.

©Copyright 2004 Intelligence Press Inc. Allrights reserved. The preceding news report may not be republishedor redistributed, in whole or in part, in any form, without priorwritten consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.