The Southwest Natural Gas Pipelines is composed of the states of Texas Gas Pipelines, Oklahoma Gas Pipelines, New Mexico Gas Pipelines, Louisiana Gas Pipelines, and Arkansas Gas Pipelines. Majority of the major onshore companies that run interstate natural gas pipeline networks there do mostly exports of natural gas produced in the Southwest Region to other US destinations plus Mexico.
There also happens to be a natural gas pipeline map that operates from the Gulf of Mexico up to intrastate systems, to supply majority of the natural gas headed for the Southwest Region.
The Southwest Natural Gas Pipelines has different companies plus municipalities that are end users of locally distributed natural gas to the region. This natural gas Pipelines is sent via over a natural gas pipeline map extending 55,000 miles, that belongs to over 64 natural gas pipeline maps in the intrastate natural gas network (inclusive of offshore Gulf of Mexico and offshore-to-onshore pipelines.)
The major industrial facilities and electric power generators within the Southwest Region are the other end users.
Southwest Natural Gas Pipelines Market Dominated By Export Transportation Services
Some natural gas pipeline maps – the biggest pioneers in the US system – start out from the Southwest Region. The first long distance pipelines to supply the Midwest market were built back in the 1930s, with the Hugoton Basin within the Texas Gas Pipelines /Oklahoma Gas Pipelines Panhandle providing a steady supply. The Panhandle Eastern Pipeline Company originally built a system that stretched east up to central Indiana but didn’t enter Michigan yet at that time (though today it does, carrying natural gas exports into the Canadian market.) The first system created by the Natural Gas Pipeline Company< of America used to serve eastern markets up to Chicago, Illinois. The Northern Natural Gas Company also operated a gas pipeline that ventured northward into the central Iowa and the central Minnesota markets.
The total daily capacity of these three systems at present can reach as much as 4.0 Bcf (billion cubic feet) and may terminate in the US delivery destinations in the Midwest Region and the Central Region.
The interstate gas pipeline map was extended further from its Southwest Natural Gas Pipelines origins to the Northwest Region natural gas market in the 1940s. The Texas Eastern Transmission
Company was originally two different oil pipelines set up in 1943 – one dubbed the ”Big Inch” and the other the “Little Big Inch” – which were later re-formatted for natural gas uses in 1947. The two natural gas pipeline maps originated from Texas, crossed over into the Midwest before venturing east up to New York/New Jersey.
The gas pipeline map of the Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company was also constructed in the 1940s era but was designed to meet the growing demand for natural gas within the Northeast Region – demand which the Appalachian producers of New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia failed to meet. Eventually, one system owned by the Transcontinental Gas Pipeline Company and another system from the Columbia Gulf Transmission Company were also set up so that gas could be transported long distance from the Southwest Region to the Northeast market.
Certain pipeline maps whose interstate systems start in the Southwest Natural Gas Pipelines are also able to supply natural gas to coastal states in the Southeast Region. Some of these pipelines are owned by Transcontinental Gar Pipeline Company, Southern Natural Gas Company (or SONAT), Gulf South Pipeline Company, and the Florida Gas Transmission Company. Transcontinental Gas Pipeline Company can now serve the Northeast Region too.
A complicated integrated pipeline map based in the Texas gulf coastline and in southern
Louisiana is actually made up of various intrastate pipeline maps with natural gas interconnections to the interstate pipelines supplying natural gas needs of many domestic
industries and fueling the expansion of natural-gas based electric generation facilities. There is also a natural gas pipeline map here whose existence revolves around various natural gasmarkets. The biggest of these local markets would be the centers known as Carthage, Henry and Egan found in the east Texas and southwest Louisiana areas.
As the natural gas systems exit that part of Louisiana, the systems then head for the eastern markets (including those distributed along the Atlantic coastline, the Gulf coastline, and the Northern Region); or move north into Mississippi, then into Tennessee and Kentucky – after that, the system winds up in Illinois and other parts of the Midwest Region.
There are some interstate gas pipelines which rely on this south-to-north natural gas transport route, namely the Texas Gas Transmission Company, the Trunkline Gas Company, and the Natural Gas Pipeline Company of America, the Midwestern Gas Transmission Company, and the ANR Pipeline Company. These pipeline systems help shippers and the gas traders to stay connected with the Henry Hub of Louisiana Gas Pipeline and the Chicago Hub of Illinois (which happen to be the biggest markets for natural gas in North America.) The producers based in the East Texas/North Louisiana basis, plus the Oklahoma Arkcoma/Anadarko basin, supply natural gas to the Henry-Chicago route through natural gas pipelines (including that of the CenterPoint Gas Transmission Company, and the Ozark Transmission Company.)
There are also Southwest Region consumers of natural gas produced in the Southwest Region, though much of the production winds up in regional markets instead. Actually, the Southwest Region has significantly more natural gas consumption than any of the other US regions.
In fact, its consumption is twice that of the Midwest Region which has the next biggest consumption level. The Southwest Region consumes around 1/3 of the US total gas consumption due to the Southwest’s need to power industries with natural gas. The high demand from industries can be attributed to easy access provided to the Southwest Region’s natural gas producers.
There are some pipelines that do deliver natural gas estimated at 4.6 Bcf daily capacity into the Southwest Region (while 4.1 Bcf is sent outwards daily.) An example of one such pipeline is the Colorado Interstate Gas Company. As this company tries to ramp up its coal-bed methane production sourced from the southeastern Colorado Raton Basin, it has been extending its pipeline capacity to the 0.6 Bcf estimated daily capacity level from years 2000 to 2005 by moving southeast into the Oklahoma and Texas panhandle natural gas markets. The higher supply was designed to meet more demand for natural gas from the new electric power generation facilities there. As for the north central Oklahoma Gas Pipeline markets, demand there receives an estimated 0.3 Bcf of daily natural gas supplies from Southern Star Central Gas Pipeline Company. This company mostly operates within Kansas market.
The Southwest Region also receives 2.2 Bcf additional daily pipeline capacity from the natural gas supplies provided by San Juan Basin producers and Piceance Basin producers within the Colorado Central Region. This goes into New Mexico but majority is eventually sent onwards into California and Arizona markets via systems owned by the TransColorado Gas Transmission Company, Transwestern Pipeline Company, and the El Paso Natural Gas Company. Majority of the rest of the entering capacity is composed of natural gas imported from Mexico through bi-directional border crossings of systems run by the Texas Eastern Transmission Pipeline Company, the Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company, and the El Paso Natural Gas Pipeline Company. Yet this pipeline map also features operational bi-directional flows on the natural gas pipeline network lying between the Louisiana basin producers and the Mississippi basin producers (including systems owned by Gulf South Pipeline Company and the Enbridge Pipelines [Mid-LA.])
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Energy Information Administration -Energy Information Administration -3/4/2008
