The Tiger Pipeline will provide takeaway capacity from the East Texas Carthage Hub area and the Haynesville Shale play, and is to be constructed, owned and operated by the ETC Tiger Pipeline Company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Energy Transfer Partners (ETP).

Designed with four compressor stations, the 42 inch diameter pipeline will have a capacity of 2 Bcf/d and commence at an interconnect with the Houston Pipeline Company in Panola County, Texas, and then travel east to the Perryville Hub in Richland Parish, Louisiana.

Construction has begun and is scheduled for completion in the first quarter of 2011. The construction of the pipeline will be broken into four spreads of 82.9 km, 42.5 km, 92.9 km and 63.2 km respectively. Each of the sections will be constructed simultaneously, with Henkels & McCoy contracted to install spreads 1 and 2, and Michels Corporation to install spreads 3 and 4.

Challenges

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The Tiger Pipeline will run parallel to the existing Carthage to Perryville, and East Texas to Mississippi pipelines, and will also travel close to numerous planned gathering lines. Co-ordinating with these other pipelines will be critical. The company plans to identify the existing facilities with flags and stakes, install safety fences to provide a visual barrier, and employ additional safety and craft inspectors to manage construction near these existing facilities.

ETC has said that weather will present the biggest challenge on this project, as the route traverses wetlands and other areas prone to flooding, which could potentially slow construction. Therefore, route sections that cross streams and wetlands are being constructed first while weather conditions are favourable.

Also, parts of the pipeline route traverse environmentally sensitive areas. To manage this issue, ETC will comply with the conditions of the permit issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The company has also hired an environmental firm to assist in the planning and incorporation of environmental protection techniques.

Managing manpower

The construction process will require considerable resources of manpower and machinery. ETP Senior Vice President of Engineering and Shared Services Manuel Gallegos said “We anticipate there will be in excess of 3,000 construction workers and support staff during the peak of the construction.”

In addition, more than 350 pieces of equipment are expected to be used, including bulldozers, dump trucks, track-hoes, trenching machines, excavators and pipelayers.

Safety will be a priority on the project, Mr Gallegos emphasised, saying that “we work with the contractors to assist them in developing their own comprehensive internal safety program. Additionally, we provide our own safety training to all of the contractor workers, and have a company safety program in place that all of our employees and direct contractors must attend.

“We also require daily safety meetings on an individual crew basis and have hired a group of safety inspectors and an independent safety auditor to ensure we are taking every possible safety factor and measure into consideration.”