Chevron U.S.A. Inc. and EQT Corp. marketing unit EQT Energy LLC have stepped up to be anchor shippers on Texas Eastern Transmission LP’s Texas Eastern Appalachia to Market (TEAM) 2014 expansion, Spectra Energy Corp.’s Texas Eastern said Thursday. The project is intended to deliver more Appalachian shale gas to markets in the Northeast, Midwest and southern United States.

Chevron and EQT are to ship a combined 600 MMcf/d. The project is expected to cost $500 million and be in service during the fourth quarter 2014. The minimum commitment to be considered an anchor shipper on the project is 300 MMcf/d.

TEAM 2014 is on part of a series of Spectra Energy projects to connect growing supply basins to premium markets in the Northeast, Midwest and Southeast. It follows the TEAM 2012 project, which is currently under construction, creating a capacity expansion of 200 MMcf/d for shippers Range Resources Corp. and Chesapeake Utilities. TEAM 2012 is to be placed into service this fall.

“The TEAM expansion program offers the opportunity for moving emerging natural gas supplies from the growing Marcellus and Utica shale plays in the Appalachian supply basin to premium markets in the Northeast, Midwest and Southeast U.S.,” said Spectra Energy Transmission’s Bill Yardley, group vice president for the Northeast. “These new regional supplies will significantly add to the reliability, security, diversity and optionality of supply for these high-demand markets, especially when combined with traditional supply sources.”

Chevron’s net acreage position in the Marcellus is the company’s largest among the Lower 48 unconventional plays in which it is active, according to company data (see Shale Daily, March 14). The Marcellus is also a star in the portfolio of Pittsburgh-based EQT (see Shale Daily, Jan. 30).

In addition to the slate of TEAM projects, Spectra Energy has announced other supply-driven initiatives that are under development, including the Ohio Pipeline Expansion Network (OPEN) (see Shale Daily, Dec. 22, 2011) and the Northeast Expansion Transmission Project (NEXT) (see Shale Daily, Jan. 20).

The TEAM 2014 and OPEN Projects also support Spectra Energy’s other expansion initiatives that will serve markets in the Southeast. The company recently announced the Renaissance Gas Transmission project, a new pipeline to link gas supplies from the Marcellus and Utica shale regions to power generation and distribution markets in Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee (see Shale Daily, March 5). The Renaissance pipeline would begin at an interconnect with Texas Eastern’s 30-inch diameter system in its Market Zone 1, which would enable TEAM 2014 and OPEN shippers to make deliveries into that system.

“Texas Eastern provides access to all the supply basins — whether it’s the Gulf region, Rockies gas, LNG [liquefied natural gas] and shale — so there’s tremendous supply optionality, and then our customers have access to premium markets, including fast-growing power generation markets in the Midwest, mid-Atlantic and Southeast, and the chemical industry and potential LNG exports of the Gulf Coast,” Yardley said.