Transportation news briefs, May 14

Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co., a subsidiary of El Paso Corp., announced an open season for its Northeast ConneXion project. The project includes an expansion of Tennessee's market area storage in Pennsylvania and an expansion of its downstream pipeline capacity from this storage area to the New York City joint facilities and to growing markets in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The storage expansion of up to 5 bcf could provide as much as 300,000 dekatherms per day of incremental deliverability. The nonbinding open season began May 14 and will conclude May 31.

Shell International Gas Ltd. has ordered two liquefied natural gas carriers to help supply growing demand for LNG. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of Japan will build one carrier, and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. Ltd., South Korea, will build the other. The Daewoo vessel is of the membrane type, and the Mitsubishi vessel is of the Moss spherical tank design. The vessels will be delivered in 2003 and 2004 respectively. The vessels are in addition to the three carriers now on order.

BOTAS Petroleum Pipeline Corp. has issued prequalification packages for the construction of the pipeline and facilities of the Turkish section of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan crude oil pipeline project.