COASTAL <CGP> SEEKS TO HALT BILLION DLR LAWSUIT Coastal Corp said a federal bankruptcy court will hear its request today for a restraining order to stop a two billion dlr lawsuit against it by <TransAmerican Natural Gas Corp>. TransAmerican, which entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in 1983 to reorganise its debts, filed the lawsuit to block Coastal from taking control. Coastal spokesman Jim Bailey confirmed the company, which is an unsecured creditor of TransAmerican, would present its own reorganisation plan to the bankruptcy court. Under the plan, Coastal would buy the natural gas reserves and pipeline system owned by TransAmerican in Texas for an undisclosed amount. TransAmerican lawyer John Nabors said the company values its total assets, including an unused oil refinery, at about one billion dlrs. The company, the second-largest natural gas producer in Texas, said it has gas reserves of 1.2 trillion cubic feet and over 1,000 miles of pipeline and gas gathering lines. About 80 pct of TransAmerican's gas is available for spot market sales in Texas during peak demand, it said. Nabors said the TransAmerican reorganisation would repay its 770 mln dlr debt with profits from natural gas sales. The lawsuit seeks one billion dlrs in actual damages and one billion in punitive damages from Coastal. Coastal has been trying to break into the Texas gas market since 1979, when it was forced to sell <Lo-Vaca Gas Gathering Co> to settle over 1.6 billion dlrs in lawsuits by Texas customers facing abrupt curtailment of supply. Coastal, a natural gas producer and pipeline company, earned 71.6 mln dlrs on sales of 6.7 billion in 1986, about half the its 1985 profits, due to slumping energy prices.