Work on Rockies Express taking shape
DUSTIN BLEIZEFFER Star-Tribune energy reporter | Posted: Sunday, August 6, 2006 12:00 am
RAWLINS - It's called an automated, mechanized welder, and it basically looks like R2-D2 stripped naked and turned on his side. The welder runs two beads simultaneously inside a 42-inch diameter pipe, zipping together two sections in one minute and 20 seconds.
Then it quickly rolls down the pipe to the next weld.
Gregory & Cook Construction Inc. and Associated Pipelines are using several of these high-dollar welders to string together 192 miles of the Rockies Express Pipeline through southern Wyoming. A crew near Cheyenne and another crew near Wamsutter began trenching and stringing pipe this week, working toward each other.
At the height of construction two months from now, some 800 workers will be involved in the project. The Wamsutter-to-Cheyenne portion of the Rockies Express Pipeline is scheduled to be in service by Jan. 1, 2007, according to Kinder Morgan.
The Rockies Express Pipeline is a 1,663 mile, 42-inch diameter natural gas pipeline that will stretch from western Colorado to central Wyoming across the nation's midsection to markets in Ohio. The Wyoming Pipeline Authority helped launch the project as part of a strategic move to expand export capacity for booming natural gas development.
In 2002, increasing natural gas production in the Rockies stressed export capacity and created gas-on-gas pricing competition for Wyoming producers, that, for a time, drove prices to just 20 percent of the national average.
Those lower prices meant lower tax revenue to state coffers - nearly $1 million per day, according to the state.
Several capacity upgrades since then, including a major expansion to the Wyoming-to-California Kern River pipeline, helped return competitive pricing for natural gas producers here. Now, the Rockies Express Pipeline is expected to secure market pricing for what could be a long-term natural gas play in Wyoming.
In south-central Wyoming, BP, Anadarko Petroleum, Williams Production and other major producers are busily drilling for gas 10,000 feet and deeper. BP plans to spend more than $2 billion over the next 10 to 15 years developing natural gas in the region.
Energy reporter Dustin Bleizeffer can be reached at (307) 682-3388 or dustin.bleizeffer@casperstartribune.net.