El Paso Corp. (EP) entered pacts with Marcellus Shale gas producers in Pennsylvania--subsidiaries of Chesapeake Energy Corp. (CHK) and Statoil ASA (STO, STL.OS)--for all the capacity of a $400 million pipeline project.

Natural-gas producer El Paso also owns North America's largest interstate natural gas pipeline system. The project will provide 636,000 million British thermal units per day of transportation capacity from Pennsylvania to an interconnect in New Jersey.

Chairman and Chief Executive Doug Foshee said that with the so-called 300 Line, the company will be adding about 1 billion cubic feet per day of new firm capacity for Northeast markets.

Most of the $400 million in expected costs will occur in 2013. The companies expect to file plans for the project in a year with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and hope to get it online on Nov. 1, 2013.

All three companies' shares were up between 2% and 3% in early trading as oil markets were also rallying.