CASPER — The Ruby Pipeline is now on its final lap toward completion for moving natural gas out of the Rockies into Western markets. A number of legal proceedings are still being worked through which could delay final construction, but most industry officials expect the line to be completed in March of next year.

The Ruby will bring an additional capacity of 1.5 billion cubic feet of gas per day, and natural gas producers will, for a time, have more pipe than production, according to the Wyoming Pipeline Authority. Nearly three quarters of the pipeline capacity is already under contract, and the rest will be marketed, according to officials, with the hopes that the remaining capacity could also be spoken for before the expected completion in the first quarter of next year.

For several years the Rockies have remained under export capacity restraints when it came to moving natural gas to other markets, which meant states like Wyoming received less revenue. The Ruby pipeline, it was thought, would help alleviate the situation by connecting Rockies gas to the northern California market, where the industry believed a major drop in the supply of Canadian natural gas would occur. 

However, the recent surge in natural gas production from shale gas plays like the Marcellus in the eastern United States has slowed the flow of Canadian gas to the Midwest. That translates into plenty of Canadian gas available for the U.S. West Coast market, at least for now. So, there will be competition between gas from the Rockies and gas from our neighbors to the north.

Still, West Coast utilities are adding more natural gas to their energy portfolios in order to meet state carbon reduction goals and that is expected to maintain demand from the competing supply regions.