HOUSTON May 14 - Williams Cos ( WMB ) on Tuesday said it

was confident a natural gas pipeline project underway in Texas

and Louisiana had not violated federal regulations, after rival

Energy Transfer ( ET ) filed a report pushing for further

regulatory review.

The two companies have been in dispute over Williams'

Louisiana Energy Gateway (LEG) Project, under construction in

Texas and Louisiana, after Energy Transfer ( ET ) pushed back on the

line for crossing its own systems.

The 1.8 billion-cubic-feet-per-day (bcfd) system was

supposed to begin service this year, but has been delayed until

the second half of 2025 following the dispute.

"Ultimately I think Energy Transfer ( ET ) sees the writing on the

wall, that their legal cases in court aren't going to work for

them, so they chose to go to the FERC", Micheal Dunn, executive

vice president and chief operating officer at Williams told

Reuters on Tuesday.

Energy Transfer ( ET ) last month requested the Federal Energy

Regulatory Commission (FERC) consider whether it should regulate

the pipeline and re-examine gathering policies. The FERC does

not regulate gathering pipelines, but it does oversee

transmission pipelines that cross state lines.

The two companies have disputed whether the line should be

regulated by the federal agency.

"We are confident the FERC will conclude that the LEG is a

gathering pipeline system. This is clearly anticompetitive

behavior on their (Energy Transfer's ( ET )) part," Dunn said.

The line would feed gas from the Haynesville shale field to

the U.S. Gulf coast.

"We are going to build our pipeline project, we have

committed to our shippers and the production needs to move out

of the area", Dunn said.

Energy Transfer ( ET ) did not respond for comment.