PG&E Gas Transmission Northwest Receives Approval from FERC to Proceed with a Major System Expansion

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The following is an advisory by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Inc.; Houston, Texas). PG&E Gas Transmission Northwest (GTN/Portland, Oregon) received approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on August 7, 2001 to move ahead with their 2002 expansion, which will increase system capacity by 207 million cubic feet per day and will supply west coast markets in dire need of natural gas.

The 2002 expansion will include the addition of five new Solar Titan 19,500 horsepower turbine-driven compressors to be installed separately at five compressor stations in Idaho and Oregon. The 2002 expansion will also entail the installation of 21 miles of new 42 diameter transmission pipeline called Loop C. The best estimates put the total investment value at $121.6 million. Process Engineering Design (Portland, Or) is the engineering group for the 2002 expansion project.

GTN is expected to file a 2003 expansion project with the FERC in November of 2001. The 2003 expansion project envisions the construction of both transmission line and compression and will increase transmission capacity by another 250 million cubic feet per day of natural gas into the Washington area. There are no firm cost estimates available for the 2003 expansion at this time, stated Ed Weatherly, Manager of Oil & Gas Transmission Group with Industrialinfo.com.

GTN is a subsidiary of the PG&E Corporation (NYSE: POC), which is a diverse energy group that has operations in 21 states and revenues in 2000 of over $21 billion on an asset base of $35 Billion.