Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company will Expand its System is Southern Texas

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Tennessee Gas Pipeline (Houston, Texas) will expand its natural gas pipeline system in southern Texas to serve power generation markets in Mexico. The new facilities to be constructed include a new compressor station near McAllen Texas, 9.3 miles of new 30" diameter transmission pipeline and 7 miles of 24" diameter looping on the Donna line.

The compressor station will be based on two 4,700 horsepower Caterpillar 3616 engines. Tennessee Gas is expecting to receive FERC approval for the $40 million expansion in February of 2003. Construction is scheduled to begin on the South Texas Expansion Project in March of 2003 with a completion time set for the third quarter of 2003 for the compressor station and new pipe. The pipeline looping portion is slated for completion in 2004. When fully completed the project will allow 320 mmscfd of natural gas to be exported to the south.

Mustang Engineering Incorporated (Houston, Texas) has been awarded the contract for the pipeline section and Tennessee Gas will seek bids the compressor station portion in late December of early January.

Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company is a subsidiary of the El Paso Corporation (Houston, Texas) (NYSE:EP) and operates a 14,700 mile natural gas pipeline system stretching from Mexico to Canada with over 1.4 million horsepower of compression.

IIR has been tracking the progress of the South Texas Expansion Project since March of 2002.