Cookeville Considering Re-Marketing Portion Of New Gas Capacity

Cookeville City Council will consider re-marketing some of its newly acquired gas transportation capacity from the East Tennessee Pipeline.

Gas Department Director Jeff Mills said that the city was lucky to gain access to the additional 3,000 dekatherms to accommodate the city’s growth. He said that because there is not an immediate need for the total capacity, they plan to add one-third of the capacity to the line and contract the remaining two-thirds.

“If we kept the full 3,000 and just kept it for our use whenever we need it, it may be two years from now it may be ten years from now, it was kind of a future thing,” Mills said. “So each year we would save an additional $328,000 a year.”

Mills said that the contract would allow the city to rescind whenever that additional growth is needed. He said that the re-market process would fund additional capacity needed to move gas into the pipe.

“It actually takes two pipelines to get gas from the Gulf of Mexico to us,” Mills said. “So ultimately we’ve got to acquire some extra capacity on the upstream pipe.”

Mills said that the changes should have no effect on gas rates for city residents. He said that as far as usage goes, as system growth increases the city will have plenty of capacity to supply for people.