By Lewis Delavan
Arkansas News Bureau

NORTH LITTLE ROCK — The Fayetteville Express Pipeline holds long-term benefits beyond an estimated $9 million in annual tax revenue for communities along its path, a spokesman for the pipeline’s developer said Thursday.

Marketing natural gas from the Fayetteville Shale play makes the state a stronger economic competitor nationally, Kinder Morgan Energy Partners spokesman Allen Fore said during a speech to the North Little Rock Kiwanis Club.

The 185-mile pipeline extends from Conway County to Panola County, Miss. It connects near Bald Knob with Natural Gas Pipeline of America and with three transcontinental pipelines in Mississippi.

Fayetteville Express was built simultaneously in four segments. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission application was filed in June 2009. Construction began in March of this year.

The pipeline is expected to be operational Dec. 1, ahead of the initial forecast for early 2011, at a cost of $1.01 billion, some $290 million below projections, Fore said. Good weather played a major role in the savings, he said.

Eight counties will share property tax revenue from the pipeline. White County will gain the most, Fore said, because it has the most miles of Fayetteville Express and also the $170 million Russell Compressor Station near Bald Knob.

The length of two football fields, the compressor station will provide 10 to 15 news jobs, he said.

The pipeline allows customers such as Chesapeake Energy and Southwestern Energy to market gas anywhere in the country.

“They actually own the gas in the pipeline,” Fore said. “We just transport it.”

The pipeline’s capacity of 2 million cubic feet daily is enough to heat four million homes, Fore said.

Kinder Morgan’s partner in the joint venture, Energy Transfer Partners, will operate the pipeline.