Connect Summer 2016 | Page 4

Making History Gulf Trace Project to Serve New Export Facility “There’s a lot of gas that needs to come this direction.” Scott Owen Senior Project Manager Engineering & Construction Mark 2016 as an historic year — the year the U.S. became an exporter of natural gas. Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass Liquefaction and Export Terminal in Cameron Parish, Louisiana recently completed its first liquefied natural gas (LNG) delivery to an international market. Now, Williams Partners is expanding its delivery capacity to serve this export facility. Approved last year by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Gulf Trace project includes the installation of a seven mile, 36inch concrete-coated pipe delivering gas to the Sabine Pass Liquefaction Facility meter station. “The Gulf Trace project is among several fully contracted interstate pipeline projects Williams Partners is executing to connect North America’s abundant natural gas supplies to demand growth from the local distribution, electric power generation, industrial and LNG export businesses,” says Rory Miller, senior vice president, Atlantic-Gulf operating area. 4 As part of the project, Williams Partners also is building a new greenfield compressor station; making horsepower additions to the existing Transco Station 44; and performing mainline modifications at three other existing Transco Stations (45, 50 and 60) to allow for the bi-directional flow of gas. “This project (Gulf Trace) is to deliver (natural gas) to trains three and four of Cheniere which are expected to be on line in the first quarter of 2017,” says Scott Owen, senior project manager, Engineering & Construction for Williams. “And, we are targeting the first part of 2017 to be in-service to meet their needs.” Pushing Through In order to deliver the pipeline construction for this project, our team is using the SWAMP technique to push the pipe through the water filled swamp that is the pipeline right of way along the Gulf Coast. In this operation, each 40,000-pound pipe joint goes on the push rack through an assembly line of welding stations and an x-ray machine before being guided to its right-of-way destination with the help of floats. CONNECT: A PUBLICATION FOR WILLIAMS CUSTOMERS | VOL. 4, ISSUE 1, 2016