KMP to build $72m pipeline

Kinder Morgan Energy Partners today announced plans to construct a $72m natural gas pipeline designed to bring new supplies out of East Texas to markets in the Houston and Beaumont areas.

The new pipeline, consisting of 58 miles of 24-inch pipe and multiple interconnections, will connect the Kinder Morgan Tejas system in Houston County to the Kinder Morgan Texas system in Polk County near Goodrich, Texas. Kinder Morgan has entered into a long-term binding agreement with CenterPoint Energy Services to provide firm transportation for a significant portion of the initial project capacity.

The new pipeline will have an initial capacity of 225 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) and can be expanded to over 400 MMcf/d.

‘This project will more than double capacity on Kinder Morgan's intrastate pipeline system to move East Texas production to markets in Houston and Beaumont, and it is a good locational fit with the ongoing storage expansion at our North Dayton facility,’ said Tom Martin, president of the Texas Intrastate Pipeline Group. ‘We see the need for the capacity due to the tremendous amount of drilling occurring along our system in East Texas, including initial testing of the deep Bossier play in Houston and surrounding counties.’

KMP's Texas intrastate system is comprised of approximately 6,000 miles of pipelines with a peak transport and sales capacity of about 5.2 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. The system primarily serves the Texas Gulf Coast, transporting, processing and treating gas from multiple onshore and offshore supply sources to serve the Houston, Beaumont and Port Arthur, Texas, markets.