Expanding a gas system in the U.S. Midwest will facilitate the utilization of shale gas from the Utica and Marcellus plays, pipeline company Kinder Morgan said.
Kinder Morgan operates and owns a 20 percent interest in systems for Natural Gas Pipeline Co. It said it was soliciting industry interest in the possible expansion of a pipeline system in Illinois to carry another 430 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.
"This project will enable Chicago-area markets to diversify their gas supply portfolios and access additional prolific gas production from the Utica and Marcellus shale areas," Kinder Morgan Natural Gas Pipelines Central Region President David Devine said in a statement Thursday.
Total production from Utica shale should increase from 155 million cubic feet per day in January 2012 to an expected 1.3 billion cubic feet per day by September. By 2020, Marcellus could be responsible for about 25 percent of the total U.S. natural gas supply.
If there's enough industry interest, Kinder said the $100 million expansion could be in service by late 2016.
