Empire Connector — one of five projects that make up the Northeast Project, or the reconfigured Millennium Pipeline project — is scheduled to begin service to customers in New York and New England early this month, said company spokeswoman Julie Coppola Cox.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Wednesday gave National Fuel Gas Co.’s Empire State Pipeline the green light to begin service on the 77-mile, 24-inch diameter connector that extends from near the terminus of Empire’s exiting 157-mile pipeline outside Rochester, NY, and runs south to Corning, NY, where it ties in with Millennium Pipeline, which is expected to go into service on Dec. 15 (see Daily GPI, Dec. 1).

The $144 million Empire Connector project will transport 250,000 Dth/d and provide customers with access to supplies at the Dawn Hub in Ontario through Empire State Pipeline’s connection with TransCanada PipeLine’s system at the Chippawa Channel of the Niagara River. FERC gave the go-ahead for Empire Connector as part of an order in December 2006 approving the mega-Northeast Project (see Daily GPI, Dec. 22, 2006). The Empire State line originates at the United States-Canada border near Buffalo, NY.

Empire Connector is part of a $1 billion mega-infrastructure project that also includes Millennium, Columbia Gas Transmission, Algonquin Gas Transmission and Iroquois Gas Transmission.

The mega-project is an alternative to the 442-mile, 700 MMcf/d Millennium Pipeline project that the Commission approved in September 2002 (see Daily GPI, Sept. 19, 2002). That project never got off the ground because it was blocked from crossing the Hudson River by New York state, which ruled Millennium to be inconsistent with the state’s authority under the Coastal Zone Management Act. The project was declared dead in the water when former Commerce Department Secretary Donald Evans upheld New York’s position in a December 2003 ruling (see Daily GPI, Dec. 17, 2003).

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