Piedmont Natural Gas to provide gas facilities for USMC base

Piedmont Natural Gas has secured a three-year $15m contract to construct natural gas facilities for Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina, US.

Over 55 miles of gas mains and other facilities will be built to serve around 500 existing structures at the base, which is home to the USMC’s II Marine Expeditionary Force.

The new natural gas facilities will enable Camp Lejeune to decentralise and reduce inefficiencies associated with its existing centralised coal and fuel-oil fired steam system.

The buildings will disconnect from the existing steam system and a more energy efficient natural gas boiler unit will be installed at each facility.

Piedmont Natural Gas vice president for sales and delivery services Bill Williams said: "With the construction of the new natural gas infrastructure, the base will be more energy efficient, which should help reduce its overall energy costs, and have a smaller carbon footprint."

Piedmont said that natural gas emits around 50% less carbon dioxide than coal and 30% less than fuel oil on an energy equivalent basis.

Construction work is currently underway, and is expected to be completed in 2016.