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PG&E Begins Building Calif. Natgas Line Expansion by Reuters Reuters - October 25, 2001

SAN FRANCISCO, (Reuters) - Pacific Gas and Electric Co. on Thursday said it started building earlier this month an expansion at a pipeline that will deliver around 200 million cubic a day of much-needed natural gas to northern California.

A spokeswoman for the PG&E Corp. unit, California's biggest utility, said the $39.5 million expansion will include 14 miles of new pipeline in northern California.

Construction is expected to be completed by September 2002, but no decision has been taken on when the new capacity will be offered for commercial service, the spokeswoman said.

The expansion, whose output will be about enough to service a 1,200 megawatt power plant, will connect with the company's 425-mile line 401, which runs from Malin, Oregon into northern California.

After the expansion is complete, total firm capacity on line 401 will increase to around 2 billion cubic feet a day.

The utility said that a bankruptcy court approved the pipeline expansion.

Pacific Gas & Electric filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in April after piling up up billions of dollars in power costs it was not allowed to pass on due to a retail price freeze imposed under California's power deregulation laws.