Three of the biggest names in Northwest energy announced plans Wednesday to complete a 250-mile-long natural gas pipeline from the proposed liquefied natural gas terminal in Coos Bay to Malin, a small town about 30 miles southeast of Klamath Falls, by 2010.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Williams' Northwest Pipeline and Fort Chicago Energy Partners L.P. issued a press release Wednesday indicating the three planned to pursue the development of a new pipeline that would significantly boost natural gas supplies for the West Coast.

The pipeline, dubbed the Pacific Connector, would link the proposed Jordan Cove LNG terminal at the North Spit to Williams' Northwest Pipeline system near Roseburg and then connect into PG&E's gas transmission systems near Malin, about five miles from the California border. The pipeline would deliver 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas to the Pacific Northwest, California and possibly Nevada.

The exact route of the pipeline has not been hammered out, said Michele Swaner, a Williams spokeswoman who called the plans “preliminary.” She said the pipeline, that would be built by Williams, would provide competitive and reliable alternatives to existing supplies from Canadian, southwestern U.S. and Rocky Mountain sources, which are increasingly being pursued to supply eastern U.S. markets.

“Through joining forces with other utilities in the region, we hope to bring additional cost-effective supply sources that would significantly benefit our gas and electric end use customers,” said Bob Howard, PG&E's vice president of gas transmission and distribution in a prepared statement.

To those in the gas engineering community, the announcement did not come as a shock. Adam Bless, a senior facility analyst for the Oregon Department of Energy, said if an area is going to have an LNG facility, there has to be a way to ship the product.

But, before construction of the Pacific Connector would get under way, the LNG terminal itself must first gain approval by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the U.S. Coast Guard. Bob Braddock, project manager for the Evergreen, Colo.-based Energy Projects Development spearheading the Jordan Cove Energy Project, said Wednesday his company planned to take the necessary steps to do just that by filing preliminary paperwork with FERC in April. Meanwhile, the regulatory process and environmental assessment for the proposed pipeline route will begin in March and intends to file paperwork with FERC in January, 2007. Braddock said Energy Projects Development planned to submit its FERC application in September.

The FERC-filing would trigger a more than year-long rigid schedule of public hearings, workshops and report deadlines that would culminate into an environmental impact statement that Braddock said would likely be issued in 2007.

Energy Projects Development also must submit a waterway suitability assessment to the U.S. Coast Guard, the regulatory agency mandated to review the safety and security of the proposed LNG terminal.

Despite the significant hurdles yet to come, Braddock said he was pleased with the announcement.

“I think what it does, if anything, it makes the prospect for the terminal that much more probable,” said Braddock, who was in Washington, D.C., Wednesday meeting with FERC officials about the project. “It has gained a lot of traction in the Northwest, California and Nevada.”

The original LNG proposal that surfaced in September 2003 was one-third the size it is now, with Energy Projects Development targeting users in the Umpqua basin and the Willamette Valley, Braddock said. At one time, energy experts called the LNG terminal project here - at 200 million cubic feet of natural gas per day - the smallest LNG import facility in the United States.

“It has catapulted from what we started out doing, which was a very niche-oriented operation that we saw to fill in Southwest Oregon. Others have seen more in it than just that,” Braddock said.

Energy Projects Development could have had an energy companies and utilities courting it, but instead, Braddock said they got a few of the leading companies in the Northwest.

“We felt good they saw something in it,” Braddock said. “Being associated with them rubs off on us. They have credibility. That builds a broader team.”

Some say the LNG terminal is the linchpin to a series of economic development projects for the area. LNG facility approval also is the cornerstone for the Oregon International Port of Coos Bay's plans to purchase 1,300 acres from Weyerhaeuser to market to potential industrial clients.

“The presence of an LNG terminal will provide a catalyst, and maybe even a magnet for other energy-based industries to site there,” Braddock said.

Braddock said it could be shipped via ocean-going vessels from countries including Australia, Russia or Peru and stored on the North Spit in a 120-foot tall, double-hulled tank capped by three feet of concrete. The natural gas is converted to a liquid form by freezing it to negative 260 degrees Fahrenheit, increasing its density and reducing the volume it occupies by 600 times. In its liquid form, the gas is not flammable but as it returns to its gas form and expands, natural gas again becomes highly combustible.

The LNG project has not been without its detractors, who fear its presence increases safety and security issues, such as a disaster brought on by fire, earthquake, tsunami or terrorist attack (see sidebar). In 2004, a liquefied natural gas plant in Algeria exploded, killing 30 workers.

Braddock said he has no control of what path the Pacific Connector will take once it leaves the North Spit property, adding he doesn't think the presence of a competing natural gas provider in the area will threaten the investment the county made in its natural gas pipeline.

“No way. We see it as the opportunity to recoup value from that asset in a much shorter time,” Braddock said. “Without our presence here, there would be very little moving through the pipeline. It would only be for local consumption.”

However, that part of the project has yet to be solidified.

“We are in discussion with the county about that,” Swaner said. “That is all we can really say at this point. There is nothing definite.”

If the plans do come to fruition, Braddock speculated the transport revenues to the county would increase. Coos County Commission Chairman John Griffith said it still is too early to tell what effect the Pacific Connector pipeline would have on Coos County citizens or the county's pipeline.

In the meantime, Coos County is pursuing sale of methane through private investors. According to Loran Wiese, the project manager for Methane Energy Corp., there is no association between Methane Energy Corp., and the new pipeline.

“At this time, we've not been asked to do anything,” he said.

Bless said based on past pipeline project costs, he estimated the Pacific Connector pipeline would cost up to $400 million, more expensive than other projects because it would cross both the Coast Range and the rugged Siskiyou mountains.

Braddock said the proposed LNG terminal for the North Spit is in competition with two others proposed for the Columbia River.

“In my own personal opinion, there is only going to be one LNG terminal built in the Northwest,” Braddock said. “If it's not us, it's them. If it's them -it's not us. But we think we have access to markets that is unmatched.”