Government Approves Williams Request To Expand Nation's Largest Natural Gas Pipeline System, Transco

Williams Partners receives FERC approval for Transco Pipeline expansion designed primarily to serve new gas-fired power-generation in Virginia:

Co announces it has received Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approval to expand Transco, the nation's largest natural gas pipeline system, to provide service to a customer's new, gas-fired, power-generation plant in Virginia. 

A unit of Dominion (D) plans to construct the 1,358-megawatt facility in Brunswick County, Va., to replace generating capacity from retiring coal-fired plants.

The ~$300 mln Transco Virginia Southside Expansion is designed to provide 270,000 dekatherms per day (dth/d) of incremental transportation capacity in Virginia and North Carolina by September 2015. Of the total expanded capacity, more than 90 percent will serve Dominion Virginia Power's new power plant; the remainder will serve Piedmont Natural Gas Company's (PNY) local-distribution business in North Carolina.

Putting that into perspective: Williams will commit about $300 million to expand the nation's largest pipeline system; the expansion will serve the very population-dense northeast and east.

Meanwhile, ONEOK will commit close to a billion dollars (initial budget $780 million) to expand natural gas gathering, processing, and planting, in North Dakota (fly-over country).