Transco's Atlantic Access Pipeline Project delayed

A billion dollar-plus interstate pipeline planned to move natural gas from the West Virginia panhandle to the Eastern Seaboard is being delayed due to the sharp drop in natural gas prices.

The Atlantic Access Pipeline Project will be ready for service in 2015, rather than the 2014 date announced late last year, a company spokesman said.

"This delay is a result of historically low natural gas prices," said Christopher Stockton, spokesman for Transco, a division of Williams Co. Inc. of Houston. "Natural gas producers who are interested in moving gas on the pipeline have expressed to us that they would be better served by a 2015 in-service date rather than a 2014 service date."

The price of natural gas has been declining, in large part due to oversupply resulting from fracking, but in part due to the unusually warm winter reducing demand.

Natural gas prices of $4 per 1,000 cubic feet were not uncommon in the winter of 2011, but those prices have fallen to decade lows of less than $2, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The result has been a cutback in drilling by a number of companies in the Marcellus Shale region.

"Nobody is going to be able to (afford) to drill dry gas at $2," said Lou D'Amico, executive director of the Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association.

Drilling has not slowed as much in southwestern Pennsylvania, where companies are tapping the wet Marcellus gas that provides by-products, or in Ohio, where the Utica shale is located.

Williams Partners' Transco Pipeline in agreement, announces open season

Williams Partners L.P. (NYSE: WPZ) announced on April 4 that it is initiating a binding open season to April 25 for an expansion of its Transco interstate pipeline to provide incremental firm natural gas transportation capacity to markets in southern Virginia and northern North Carolina by 2015.

Williams owns 72 percent of Williams Partners, including the general-partner interest.

The Virginia Southside Expansion Project is being designed to provide incremental firm transportation service on the Transco pipeline from its existing Zone 6 Station 210 pooling point in Mercer County, N.J., to delivery points along Transco's South Virginia Lateral. The company has executed a precedent agreement to provide Dominion Virginia Power with 250,000 dekatherms per day of the capacity and will solicit bids in the open season from shippers for additional deliveries along the project path. The proposed in-service date is September 2015.

Dominion Virginia Power would use its capacity for a 1,300-megawatt, combined-cycle, natural gas-fired power station that it plans to build in Brunswick County, Va.

"Williams is excited by this opportunity to partner with Dominion to serve Virginia's power needs and open this part of the Commonwealth to additional economic development," said Randy Barnard, president of Williams Partners' natural gas pipeline business.

Transco proposes 258-mile Atlantic Access gas pipeline for Marcellus Shale

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. - Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co. is maneuvering to construct a pipeline to carry Marcellus Shale natural gas across Pennsylvania to West Virginia.

The Atlantic Access Project, a proposed 258-mile pipeline using 36-inch pipe, would move fuel from the rich Marcellus gas fields of western Pennsylvania and the panhandle of West Virginia to eastern gas-hungry markets.

"We are early - early in this process," said Christopher Stockton, a spokesman for Houston-based Transco. Transco is owned by The Williams Co. Inc. of Tulsa, Okla.

The company has filed a pre-application, amounting to a request for a review of project plans, with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

The project could cost $1 billion, according to U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials.

When the pipeline is completed, it would carry 1,350,000 dekatherms of natural gas per day, or enough energy to provide winter heat for 1,350,000 homes for one day, according to calculations by Penn State's Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research.

UGI Energy to spend $150 million building Marcellus Shale gas pipeline

SPRING TOWNSHIP, Pa. - UGI Energy Services Inc. has announced that it will spend about $150 million to build an underground pipeline to extend its reach from the Marcellus shale region of Pennsylvania.

The midstream and energy marketing unit of UGI Corp. will extend for 28 to 30 miles from its Auburn Gathering System.

The pipeline will connect the southern part of Susquehanna County and northern Wyoming County to an undetermined location and include a connection to the Transcontinental (Transco) gas pipeline.

"We'll be taking the gas to market," Terranova said. "It's a brand-new pipeline."

He said that UGI Energy will buy land along the route and will own the rights to construct and operate the pipeline on that land.

He added that the company will have to get permits wherever they are required on the state, county and local levels.

Terranova said he expects that several hundred jobs will be created between the contractors working on the pipeline and those employed by UGI. About 230 employees work at the Spring Township headquarters.