Federal Energy Regulatory Commission staff will allow Enbridge Inc.'s Algonquin Gas Transmission LLC natural gas pipeline an additional two years to complete the 132,705-Dth/d Atlantic Bridge expansion.

FERC's 2017 certificate authorization of the project had set the deadline for Jan. 25, 2019, but commission staff on Dec. 26 granted Algonquin a two-year extension to Jan. 25, 2021, due to "further permitting delays for the [Weymouth, Mass.] compressor station and ... ongoing construction of the horizontal directional drill of the Taconic Parkway in New York."

The estimated $451.8 million expansion includes new pipeline and compression facilities in New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts and will provide additional transportation capacity for gas moving north from receipt points in New Jersey and New York.

The town of Weymouth in February asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review FERC's approval of the project and the commission's decision not to rehear the project's certificate order, alleging that the Atlantic Bridge expansion threatens the health and safety of residents. (FERC docket CP16-9-001)