The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission granted Rover Pipeline LLC permission to start service on some of the last pieces of its 511-mile natural gas pipeline project, which will deliver gas supplies from the Marcellus and Utica shales through the Midwest.
FERC notified Rover of the authorization in a May 31 letter. The authorization allows service to begin on the final parts of mainline B and supply connector line B. The commission did not include approvals for service for the Majorsville lateral nor the Burgettstown lateral at the eastern edge of Ohio. Rover had asked for authorization of these laterals along with the other facilities.
The authorization came after Rover's repeated requests for immediate service on the remaining pipeline portions, asking the commission to approve service by the morning of May 31, which would allow the Energy Transfer Partners LP subsidiary to meet contractual arrangements for service on June 1. If FERC had permitted service on the laterals, another 850 MMcf/d of incremental capacity would have been added to the project.
"We are continuing to evaluate your in-service requests for the remaining facilities," FERC Director of Division of Gas Rich McGuire said in the letter.
Washington Analysis LLC analyst Rob Rains said the commission is usually considerate of pipeline developers' schedules. "However, the documented challenges with this project has likely irked commission staff and cost [Energy Transfer Partners] some goodwill with these officials," Rains said.
Before federal regulators authorized the project in a certificate order in February 2017, the developers got off to a bad start with both FERC and Ohio by demolishing a potentially historic building. During construction, leaks of drilling fluids, including 2 million gallons released into a wetland, resulted in fines, delays and additional scrutiny from both federal and state officials. Most recently, commission staff warned Rover that failures to appropriately restore construction areas in a timely manner would impact remaining in-service requests.
Tamara Young-Allen, spokesperson for FERC, said FERC staff will continue to monitor restoration efforts and will refrain from making determinations on in-service requests until those efforts are satisfactory.
The $4.2 billion Rover project will carry up to 3.25 Bcf/d of Marcellus and Utica shale gas as far as Michigan and Canadian markets. After the delays, Rover estimated full commercial would begin in the second quarter of 2018. Partial service began in late August 2017, with the project eventually reaching its current transportation capacity of up to approximately 2 Bcf/d of gas.
The commission first authorized service on the project's mainline A on Aug. 31, 2017, and issued approval on April 25 to start service along parts of mainline B, from mainline compressor station 2 to mainline compressor station 3. The latest approval allows service along the remaining sections of mainline B between mainline compressor station 1 and mainline compressor station 2 and between mainline compressor station 3 and the Defiance compressor station.
Supply connector line B, which runs parallel to another supply lateral in Ohio, consists of 18.8 miles of 42-inch-diameter pipe that ends at the mainline compressor station 1 and an interconnection with mainlines A and B in Carroll County, Ohio.
Shippers ability to use the pipeline's full transportation capacity will depend on upstream supply laterals entering service and on downstream deliveries to Vector Pipeline LP. The second phase of the project, which includes the market zone north segment, is designed to bring Appalachian shale gas to Midwest markets, the Vector Pipeline system and the Dawn Hub in Ontario. (FERC docket CP15-93)
