NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sempra Energy unit Sempra Mexico has been chosen to build a $1 billion natural gas pipeline that will connect the U.S. grid in Arizona with northwest Mexico, after a bidding process was completed, the company said on Monday.
The 500-mile line, which will be built in two sections, will supply some of the abundant reserves of U.S. natural gas to Mexican government-owned power plants that until now have run on fuel oil, Sempra said in a statement.
The first 310-mile (500-kilometer) section, which will run from Sasabe, south of Tucson, Arizona, to Guaymas, Mexico, will have a capacity of 770 million cubic feet of gas per day (mmcfd). That line is expected to begin operations late 2014.