Company plans to boost capacity of natural-gas pipeline that serves Utah, Nevada and Calif.

Operator to boost Western gas pipeline

SALT LAKE CITY — More natural gas will be delivered to Utah, the Las Vegas area and southern California from a pipeline expansion project that has cleared a hurdle with federal regulators.

Salt Lake City-based Kern River Transmission Co. plans to boost the capacity of a pair of 36-inch pipelines that collect the gas in Opal, Wyo., and travel as far as California’s San Joaquin Valley.

At one spot in central Utah, the parallel pipelines merge into one because of mountainous terrain. Kern River says it plans to complete a second pipeline there to boost capacity by 266 million cubic feet a day.

The pipelines have been in service since 1992.

Doubling the pipeline in central Utah and increasing the compression pressures will allow more than 2.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day to travel through the pipelines to meet growing demand, up from 1.76 billion cubic feet, said Todd Kremer, director of business development for Kern River, a company owned by Des Moines, Iowa-based MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has decided the pipeline expansion can be accomplished with little environmental damage. FERC will take public comment until May 17, then issue a final environmental impact study this summer.

FERC issued its draft environmental impact statement late Friday, saying pipeline construction “would result in some adverse environmental impacts” in central Utah. However, the impacts can be reduced to “less-than-significant levels” with measures proposed by the company and suggested by FERC, according to the document.

Kern River has pledged to avoid disturbing stream flows when it buries the second pipeline through a 28-mile section of central Utah, said Chris Bias, the company’s director of expansion projects.

That will make the construction job harder, he said.

FERC said it will hold hearings on the project April 27 in Bountiful, Utah, and April 28 in Morgan, Utah.