Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, LP announced plans to modify and expand the existing Cochin Pipeline system to provide a solution for transporting natural gas liquids from the Marcellus Shale Basin to fractionation plants and chemical markets near Sarnia, Ontario, and Chicago.

Kinder Morgan plans to build approximately 250 miles of NGL pipeline from the Marcellus Shale Basin in southern Pennsylvania to the Cochin interconnect at Riga. From Riga, Kinder Morgan anticipates that product will be transported through the existing Cochin Pipeline system to Windsor, Ontario, and then through the Windsor-Sarnia Pipeline to Sarnia. Kinder Morgan also plans to reverse the eastern leg of its Cochin pipeline in order to move NGLs from Riga to the Chicago area, where it expects to build an additional pipeline to connect to existing fractionation facilities and chemical plants.

Mr Don Lindley vice president of business development for Kinder Morgan’s Products Pipeline group said that "Our proposed pipeline and key existing infrastructure offers NGL producers the quickest and most efficient solution to get their product to the market.”

The pipeline will be designed to transport mixed NGLs as well as purity NGLs such as ethane, and will have an initial throughput capacity of 75,000 barrels per day and can be expanded to handle up to 175,000 barrels per day.

The recent decision by Canada’s National Energy Board directing the reconnection of the Cochin Pipeline to the Windsor-Sarnia Pipeline will enable Cochin Pipeline shippers to have access to the Sarnia chemical complex. Kinder Morgan anticipates offering transportation from Marcellus to Sarnia for under 14 cents per gallon.