ALBANY COUNTY — Land owners are being contacted for permission to survey along the existing right-of-way for gas pipelines through Albany County and surrounding municipalities.

The permissions are for 200 feet on each side of the proposed right-of-way centerline, according to Richard Wheatley, public affairs director for Kinder Morgan Inc., the parent company for the Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. that is planning an expansion of its lines, expected to be in service in 2018.

“Depending upon the existing configuration of land rights, additional land outside the existing right-of-way would be needed,” for the expansion, Wheatley wrote in an e-mail to The Enterprise.

The newly sought corridor would be used for civil engineering, environmental, and archeological surveys, according to Wheatley. The resources surveyed, like wetlands and endangered species, are necessary for the process of filing the project with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

In New York, Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. is seeking survey permissions in Albany, Columbia, Rennselaer and Schoharie counties.

The expansion project is supposed to upgrade the company’s gas-transportation system in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire with about 250 miles of new pipeline.

The expansion project hasn’t yet received approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and the exact route of the new lines hasn’t been determined. According to Wheatley, Tennessee is expecting to pre-file under the National Environmental Policy Act later this year, with a filing for a FERC certificate to take place in the fall of 2015.