FERC took action on four natural gas pipeline projects at its meeting on Thursday, issuing three certificates of public convenience and necessity (CPCN) for three expansion projects and vacating an order for construction of a compressor station.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued the first CPCN to Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co. LLC (Transco), authorizing construction of the Leidy Southeast expansion (see Shale Daily, Aug. 12; Oct. 2, 2013). The expansion would create an additional 525,000 Dth/d of capacity from Transco’s Leidy line in Pennsylvania as far south as Choctaw County, AL [CP13-551].

The Leidy project, expected to cost $607 million, would relieve capacity constraints in the Marcellus Shale while serving local distribution companies along the Atlantic Seaboard.

FERC also issued a CPCN to Columbia Gas Transmission LLC for its East Side Expansion Project, which would add 312,000 Dth/d of firm capacity to serve mid-Atlantic markets [CP14-17-000]. Last August, the commission issued a favorable environmental assessment for the project (see Daily GPI, Aug. 29).

Columbia’s East Side project, estimated to cost $268.5 million, calls for construction of about 19.1 miles of new 20- and 26-inch diameter looping pipelines in Chester County, PA, and Gloucester County, NJ. Several facilities in Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania would also be upgraded.

A third CPCN was awarded to Texas Eastern Transmission LP (Tetco) for its Uniontown to Gas City (U2GC) Expansion Project, which is designed to transport Marcellus Shale gas from southwestern Pennsylvania to Indiana (see Shale Daily, Aug. 19, 2013).

Tetco has proposed constructing and operating facilities in Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania designed to provide 425,000 Dth/d of firm transportation capacity from receipt points near its existing compressor station in Uniontown, PA, to Lebanon, OH, where natural gas will flow north on Tetco’s Eastern Lebanon Lateral to an interconnection with the Panhandle system near Gas City, IN [CP14-104-000]. The total cost of the project is estimated at more than $56 million.

FERC also granted a request by Bison Pipeline LLC to vacate its certificate authority for construction and operation of a compressor station [CP09-161-000]. The Hettinger Compressor Station was to be built during the second phase of construction of the Bison Pipeline, a 302-mile pipeline to transport natural gas from the Dead Horse region near Gillette, WY, to an interconnection with the Northern Border Pipeline in Morton County, ND (see Daily GPI, Feb. 22, 2011).

The first phase of the Bison Pipeline created 407 MMc/d of capacity; Hettinger would have added an additional 70 MMcf/d.

“Bison states that demand for the additional capacity that would be created by the compression facilities has not materialized and is not expected to do so in the foreseeable future,” the FERC order said.