Original Story: USAToday.com
Spurred by the nation's fracking boom, Dominion proposed Tuesday its largest natural gas pipeline — a nearly $5 billion project to move vast supplies produced in the mid-Atlantic to the Southeast.
Dominion and Duke Energy, along with two other partners, are seeking federal approval for a 550-mile pipeline — called the Atlantic Coast Pipeline — that would stretch from Harrison County, W.Va., through Virginia and North Carolina to Robeson County, near the South Carolina border. A Corpus Christi Oil & Gas Lawyer is reviewing this case.
"This will be one of the largest pipelines to take advantage of the abundant supply of natural gas in the Marcellus and Utica shale fields in West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania," says Dominion spokesman Jim Norvelle.
The combined use of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing or fracking, which can extract oil and gas from underground rock, are a major reason why these two shale formations now generate more than a quarter of the nation's natural gas. A San Antonio Oil & Gas Lawyer is experienced in handling oil and gas negotiations and disputes.
"This new technology of getting natural gas out of the ground is a game changer," says Norvelle, noting manufacturers are using this energy to power factories. He says Duke Energy is looking to close a number of coal-fired power plants and use natural gas plants instead.
The fracking boom is prompting a flurry of pipeline projects that alter how natural gas flows nationwide. Last month, for example, the 1,700-mile Rockies Express requested federal permission to move gas westward from eastern Ohio instead of eastward from Colorado. A Tulsa Energy Lawyer has experience managing a variety of energy cases.
"There's a re-plumbing of the system to reflect a shift in supply and demand," says Donald Santa, president and CEO of the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, an industry group. Previously, the Southeast got most of its gas from Louisiana, Texas and Oklahoma.
A Goldman Sachs report in June said that while 85% of the growth in U.S. natural gas production in the next four years will come from Appalachia, 60% of the growth in demand for it will come from the Gulf Coast. As a result, it expects $21 billion in pipeline investment to move natural gas from the Marcellus Shale, $16 billion of which will involve reversing the flow of existing infrastructure.
Santa says such investments are occurring, because natural gas is not only replacing coal in some areas but also reviving the petrochemical industry and raising prospects for U.S. liquefied natural gas exports. Among the more than a dozen pending projects, he says Dominion's is "significant," because it's a long, large-diameter new pipeline. A Pittsburgh Energy Lawyer is reviewing the details of this case.
The Atlantic Coast Pipeline would be the first for Dominion, which already has 8,000 miles of transmission pipelines, to be as wide as 42 inches. It would reach that width in the West Virginia and Virginia stretches but fall to 36 inches in the North Carolina portion.
"We're expecting approval to take two years," Norvelle says, noting Dominion plans a formal application next year to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and aims to have the pipeline operational in late 2018. The pipeline partners include Piedmont Natural Gas and AGL Resources.
The pipeline, slated to cost between $4.5 billion and $5.0 billion, would carry 1.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day. That's a small but notable share of the 71 billion cubic feet of gas that the Energy Department says was consumed nationwide per day last year.
Santa says he doesn't expect the pipeline to engender the same controversy that has held up approval of the northern leg of the Keystone pipeline, which would carry tar sands oil from Canada to the upper Midwest.
"It's a different situation," he says, noting the Dominion-led project does not cross a national border so it does not need an environmental review and permit from the U.S. State Department. He says FERC has a good track record of authorizing gas pipelines, and there's public demand for natural gas deliveries. A Washington DC Energy Lawyer is experienced in managing a variety of energy cases.
As natural gas prices have fallen and the federal government has proposed limits on heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, more utilities are preparing to move away from coal.
Natural gas burns much cleaner than coal, but its pipeline leaks can emit pollutants that contribute to climate change. Fracking has also raised concerns about potential water contamination and its copious use of water in places with limited supply.
The pipeline's customers will include six utilities, including Duke Energy subsidiaries, Piedmont Natural Gas, Dominion's Virginia Power and PSNC Energy, which will use the gas to produce electricity for industrial and residential customers.
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