June 7 (Reuters) - U.S. energy company Williams

sought permission from a federal energy regulator on Friday to

put more of the Regional Energy Access natural gas project

already under construction into service by July 1.

Williams designed Regional Energy Access to help meet rising

gas demand and ease supply constraints affecting customers in

Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland. The company said the

project, one of the biggest under construction in the U.S.

Northeast, will provide enough gas to serve 4.4 million homes

annually.

Natural gas is used to heat homes and businesses, for

cooking and in industrial plants.

The company has estimated the project's total cost at around

$1 billion.

Williams' Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co (Transco) unit

filed the request with the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory

Commission (FERC) seeking to provide about 0.16 billion cubic

feet per day (bcfd) of the roughly 0.83-bcfd project's gas

capacity available to customers on an interim basis.

The project is already partially in service. FERC said it

approved Transco's request to make the first roughly 0.45-bcfd

phase of the project available on an interim basis in October

2023.

One billion cubic feet of gas is enough to supply 5 million

U.S. homes for a day.

Williams said on its website that it started construction in

the second quarter of 2023 and expects to put the project fully

into service in the fourth quarter of 2024.