The Williams Co.’s natural gas pipeline unit is bullish on NorthAmerican development and is looking north to Canada for its nextproject.

“We certainly think Canada, particularly the frontier areas ofCanada, will be very critical in providing a portion of the supplyrequired to serve a market demand in excess of 30 Tcf,” CubaWadlington, CEO of the Williams pipeline unit, told NGI. “Therewill be significant opportunities and we intend to participate inthose opportunities…It’s on our radar screen,” Wadlington’sremarks came in response to a question about new Canadianconstruction. And while he doesn’t expect to make an announcementnext week “we would hope not long after that.”.

While TransCanada PipeLines has said it expects to see somedecline in throughput with the start-up of the new AlliancePipeline this coming winter, the primary Canadian pipes fromwestern Canada into the Midwest – Alliance, TransCanada andNorthern Border — will all have to run “at substantially highcapacity” to meet the 30 Tcf market, Wadlington said. He pointedout that new pipelines typically do not run full at the outset.”It’s very difficult to have a pipeline scheduled to be builtsimultaneously with the market coming onstream.” If you plan itright “demand catches up with capacity. You have to make a decisionto go out and build a pipeline and get it in place.” Wadlingtonpointed out that Northern Border and Kern River both started outunderutilized, but both were soon running full.

“As we have been throughout the nineties, we are very, very highon the North American market. Williams is the only major pipelinegroup which has stayed in North America and not gone outprospecting around the world,” Wadlington said. “We firmly believenatural gas is the fuel of this century.”

Wadlington did not reveal Williams’ plans, but the company, throughits northwestern pipeline subsidiaries and its interest in NorthernBorder Pipeline, has been involved in the past in the Alaska NaturalGas Transportation System (ANGTS) which was designed in the late 70sto send gas from Prudhoe Bay south to Canada and the lower 48. Onlythe two southern legs of the project — Pacific Gas Transmission andNorthern Border — were completed. Foothills Pipelines, the Canadianpartner in the ANGST project, continues to push for construction northto Alaska. An alternate was proposed late last year that would tapboth Prudhoe Bay and massive new finds in the Mackenzie Delta inCanada’s Northwest Territories. (See Daily GPI, March 13)

While there currently is not enough deliverable gas in Canada tofill western Canada pipelines into the U.S., there is about 3Tcf/year of gas currently being reinjected into the Alaskan PrudhoeBay oil fields.

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