Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) and National Fuel Gas Supply (NFG) have been granted authorization by FERC for their Niagara Expansion and Northern Access 2015 projects, which working in conjunction would move Marcellus Shale natural gas to broader markets in the United States and Canada.

TGP’s Niagara Expansion Project [CP14-88] would enable it to provide up to 158,000 Dth/d of incremental firm transportation service for Seneca Resources Corp., moving gas from receipt points in Mercer and Elk counties in Pennsylvania to an interconnection with TransCanada Pipeline at Niagara Falls, NY. TGP would utilize capacity on its 200 and 300 Line systems and leased capacity from NFG. TGP parent Kinder Morgan expects construction to begin next month, with a scheduled in-service date of Nov. 1.

NFG’s Northern Access 2015 Project [CP14-100], which would be developed in conjunction with the Niagara expansion, would add compression and other facilities, expanding capacity to serve the northeastern United States and Canada. The company expects to begin construction this month and have the project in service in November. NFG secured contracts for all the available transport capacity on its Northern Access 2015 and Westside expansion and modernization pipeline projects more than a year ago (see Shale Daily, Dec. 20, 2013).

In the single order authorizing both projects, commissioners said they “have some concerns regarding National Fuel’s proposal to designate 2,250 hp of compression at Concord as ‘spare compression,’ given the multiple uses for which National Fuel says it may use that spare horsepower.” They specified that NFG cannot without additional authorization use any of that spare horsepower “for intermittent demands for interruptible or secondary firm service or requests for short-term firm service during scheduled maintenance intervals.” The new capacity has been fully leased by TGP.

In October, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission staff began an environmental assessment of NFG’s Northern Access 2016 Project, a 97-mile pipeline in Pennsylvania and New York designed to expand deliverability of Marcellus Shale gas to the northeastern United States as well as Canada (see Daily GPI, Oct. 23, 2014).