San Juan County pipeline extension brings gas service, 80 jobs to industrial park

A 13-mile natural gas pipeline now reaches the San Juan County Industrial Park near La Plata, and the first concrete payoff is already visible: Process Equipment and Service Company is connected and adding about 80 jobs over the next year.

State officials said the project finished with support from a $3.9 million Local Economic Development Act investment in partnership with San Juan County. The line was announced complete May 19 in Aztec and is intended to do more than serve one industrial user. It also gives homes and businesses along the route the option to become natural gas customers, extending service into a corridor that local leaders hope can support more development.

For San Juan County, the pipeline is tied to a long-running effort to turn assembled land into usable industrial property. The county acquired 190 acres in 2007 from the Bureau of Land Management and BHP Billiton, including an existing 42,000-square-foot building and other ancillary buildings. The industrial park page also identifies a 19,200-square-foot shop with two overhead bridge cranes, warehouse space and lower-level locker rooms, showing the site was built for industrial reuse well before the current expansion.

The most immediate test for the public investment is whether the infrastructure brings sustained hiring and new tenants, not just a single hookup. The industrial park includes 45 acres available for development, and PESCO’s lease of 45 acres at the former BHP La Plata Coal Mine site has already been described as a springboard for a larger operation. Earlier reporting on the company said the expansion could generate about $5 million in monthly revenue and 80 jobs, a scale that makes the pipeline’s completion central to the county’s economic case.

The project also has a broader regional angle. San Juan County’s population fell from more than 130,000 in 2010 to just under 121,000 in 2020, according to county demographic data, sharpening pressure on local leaders to replace lost work and keep residents in the labor force. County Chairman Sam Gonzales said the line opens the La Plata corridor to development that would not have been possible before, while PESCO leaders have said the extension gives the company the reliable, cost-effective energy capacity it needs to grow.

Construction on the same 13-mile line had begun in September 2025, with work expected to continue through December. With the pipeline now finished, the next milestones are straightforward: hiring at PESCO, additional development on the 45 acres still available, and whether the utility upgrade draws more employers to the industrial park rather than leaving the county with another promise and no follow-through.