Texas Eastern Transmission’s (Tetco) Uniontown-to-Gas City Expansion Project (U2GC) is poised to enter partial service, with the Spectra Energy pipeline having received FERC approval on Tuesday to place some project facilities online.

“This partial in-service will utilize the full project capacity of 425,000 Dth/d along Texas Eastern’s mainline (Uniontown, PA, to Lebanon, OH),” said Spectra spokesman Devin Hotzel. He did not indicate when the initial facilities would be brought online.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission gave the OK to place into service the project’s Holbrook and Five Points compressor stations, along with related piping and metering facilities. The pipeline is filing a separate request to place into service the facilities at its Berne Compressor Station, Hotzel told NGI. This filing would request an in-service for the additional facilities by Sept. 1, which would bring the project fully online.

Last December FERC approved U2GC, which is designed to transport Marcellus and Utica shale gas from southwestern Pennsylvania to Indiana (see Daily GPI, Dec. 18, 2014). The project includes facilities in Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania designed to provide 425,000 Dth/d of firm capacity from receipt points near an existing compressor station in Uniontown to Lebanon, where natural gas would flow north on Tetco’s Eastern Lebanon Lateral to an interconnection with the Panhandle system near Gas City, IN [CP14-104].

“The extra capacity will allow additional production to be delivered to the growing markets in the Midwest and eventually accessing markets in Michigan and Ontario,” according to Genscape in Tuesday’s Natural Gas Infrastructure Intelligence report.

Tetco requested that the following facilities be placed into service on Saturday (Aug. 1), allowing partial service of the U2GC project from Texas Eastern’s Uniontown Compressor Station to Lebanon:

Genscape Inc. noted that Tetco proposes to submit a separate request with FERC next month to place the project’s remaining facilities into service by Sept. 1, 2015.

“Range Resources-Appalachia LLC, EQT Energy LLC, and Rice Drilling B LLC will commence their long term transportation service of over 300,000 Dth/d collectively” on Saturday, the research and data analysis firm said. “Approximately 100,000 Dth/d capacity will be split between CNX Gas Co. LLC and East Resources Inc. when they commence their firm transportation services on Sept. 1, 2015.”