The Colorado Oil and Gas Association annual meeting, held in Denver in early July, highlighted efforts to get more clean-burning natural gas into the marketplace to serve national energy and environmental goals. Pipeline operators in the Rockies are doing their part. A number of pipelines to carry the region’s gas supply to outlets throughout the U.S. are either in the works or have been recently completed.

The eastern leg of Rocky Mountain Express (REX) pipeline launched service in June from east-central Missouri to the Lebanon Hub in Ohio with capacity of up to 1.6 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of gas per day. The final leg of the 639-mile, 42-inch-diameter REX-East line is being completed to Clarington, Ohio, with service expected by November 2009. This section of REX-East includes interconnects to Midwestern Gas Transmission, Panhandle Eastern, Texas Eastern, NGPL, Trunkline, Ameren, Dominion Transmission and Columbia Gas, with future interconnects to Texas Gas, Citizens, ANR, and Vectren.

Scott Moore, vice president of gas and marketing at Anadarko Energy Services, told attendees that the company has 8 Bcf of new pipeline projects under construction to deliver gas from the Rocky Mountain region by 2011: of that, 3.4 Bcf will go west of the Rockies, and 4.5 Bcf, east.

Craig Coombs, business development director of El Paso Western Pipeline, which proposes the Ruby pipeline, said that the 675-mile, 42-inch Ruby project will extend from Rocky Mountain supply basins and Wyoming’s Opal Hub to a western terminus at the Malin Hub in southern Oregon. The company reports it has entered into binding capacity commitments for more than 1.1 Bcf per day under 10- to 15-year contracts. Service on the Ruby Pipeline is scheduled to begin in May 2011.

A Kern River/Apex expansion project is adding additional pipeline and compression facilities, according to John Dushinske, vice president of marketing and regulatory affairs at Kern River Gas Transmission. Once the Apex expansion is completed in November 2011, the Kern River system will be able to transport more than 2.17 Bcf daily.

TransCanada’s Bison project is being proposed as a 289-mile pipeline from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin to the Northern Border Pipeline system in Morton County, North Dakota. TransCanada is also developing the Pathfinder Pipeline Project, a 625-mile interstate line that would extend from Meeker, Colorado, to the same Morton County facility and interconnect with Northern Border. Construction should begin in June 2010 and be completed with service by November 2011. The company said that Bison may also be extended to a facility in Opal, Wyoming.

White River Hub operator Questar told the convention-goers that in December 2008 it began providing service to a gas processing plant operated by Enterprise Product Partners. The White River Hub is a joint venture between the two companies in Rio Blanco County, Colorado. The recent construction added seven miles of new, 30-inch pipe with tie-in and metering equipment to an existing four-mile-long pipeline, with capacity of 2.5 Bcf. The pipeline and extended capacity will service northwestern Colorado’s Piceance Basin producers.

Questar’s Colorado Hub Connection Project will link to the existing Northwest Pipeline GP in October 2009.

And Questar, Alliance Pipeline and Spectra Energy are in the development phase of the Rockies Alliance Pipeline (RAP). RAP will connect prominent Wyoming basins to Wamsutter, Wyoming, and then to a hub in Chicago. Initially RAP will provide 1.3 Bcf per day of transportation capacity; with added compression, it can expand to 1.7 Bcf daily.