The latest entrant in the pipeline scramble to bring western Canadian natural gas to the Midwest and Northeast U.S.-as well as to eastern Canada-has taken key steps forward. St. Clair Pipelines (1996) Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Westcoast Energy Inc., Vancouver, B.C., late last month filed an application with Canada's National Energy Board (NEB) for construction of the Canadian portion of the TriState pipeline project. CMS Energy Corp., Dearborn, Mich., has filed an application for the U.S. portion of the project. Interests are held by CMS 66.6% and Westcoast 33.3% The $400 million project will provide new natural gas transportation service from the Chicago area to Michigan and Ontario, and through connecting pipelines, to the eastern U.S. It is to have an initial capacity of 450 MMcfd, expandable to 1 bcfd. It is expected to be in service in late 2000.
Route details
TriState will originate at Joliet, Ill., and extend through northern Indiana to the Consumers Energy Co. system near White Pigeon, Mich. From that point, TriState will add pipeline looping and compression on the Consumers system and lease the expanded capacity to deliver Canadian and U.S. gas to a number of markets in Michigan and to the Dawn hub in Ontario. Westcoast subsidiary Union Gas Ltd. owns the Dawn hub. From the Dawn hub, gas can also be delivered to markets in Canada and the northeastern U.S. via connecting pipelines, including the proposed Millennium West and Millennium pipeline projects (see map [227,703 bytes]). In December, St. Clair filed an application with NEB to build pipeline facilities upstream of the Millennium pipeline-the Millennium West line-with capacity of 700 MMcfd. This line will extend from the Dawn hub to the Lake Erie shore northwest of Patrick Point, Ont., and link with the Millennium line through a proposed TransCanada PipeLines Ltd. pipeline crossing from the Lake Erie shore to a subsea connection point at the Canada-U.S. border (OGJ, Jan. 4, 1999, p. 30).Copyright 1999 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.
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