Williams has placed into service a natural gas pipeline expansion to deliver additional gas supplies from the Transco pipeline to a new methanol manufacturing plant in St. James Parish, Louisiana.

The St. James Supply natural gas expansion project was designed to deliver 161,500 Dth/d of incremental firm transportation service to Yuhuang Chemical Inc.’s YCI St. James Enterprises LLC., to service the new $1.85 billion methanol manufacturing complex.  Methanol is a chemical building block used in making hundreds of products, from paints and plastics, furniture and carpeting, to car parts and windshield washer fluid.

The St. James project consisted of less than one mile of 20-inch-diameter lateral pipeline and new metering and regulating stations in St. James Parish, La., at the interconnection for the chemical plant.

The project also included adding another metering and regulating station in Pointe Coupee Parish, La., and modifications to compressor stations that allow for bidirectional flow in St. James and St. Helena parishes.