Texas-to-Phoenix Pipeline could ease California Gas Prices

You may have heard about the butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil leading to a chain of events that precipitates a major storm on the other side of the earth...if you haven't bear with me, because the tale came to mind as I read about how a gas pipeline from Texas to Arizona will reduce gas prices in California. Makes perfect sense.

Expansion of a gasoline pipeline from El Paso to Phoenix might be the fastest way to boost California gas supplies and stabilize prices, an oil economist said yesterday.

Phil Verleger, a senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics and a former energy official in the Ford and Carter administrations, said the pipeline expansion could supply the equivalent of 100,000 barrels of gas daily to the Arizona market, alleviating the need for Arizona to draw from California's gas supply.

In a conference call with reporters, Verleger said a 350-mile expansion of the Longhorn Pipeline could be accomplished within two years, while expansion of refineries in California is at least five years away and conservation efforts will provide only minimal price relief.

Meanwhile, California is waiting to see whether a pipeline from Texas or new port construction will be the preferred solution to meeting our demand for Natural Gas.