FERC has granted Greenbrier Pipeline Co. LLC’s request for a two-year extension to build and put into operation its proposed 279-mile pipeline that would serve local distributors and power generators in the Mid-Atlantic region.

The new deadline for project completion is Nov. 1, 2007. This is the second extension that the Greenbrier project has received. The FERC certificate for the project, which was issued in April 2003, required Greenbrier to have the pipeline in service by Nov. 1, 2005. It also required the company to have firm, long-term agreements for 90% of the transportation capacity in hand before undertaking construction of the proposed line.

In mid-April, Greenbrier sought the second postponement “so that it can secure the market opportunities and meet all other conditions” of the April 2003 certificate order prior to starting construction, the agency order said [CP02-396]. The company at the time gave no indication that it planned to abandon the pipeline project (see NGI, April 19).

Greenbrier initially in November requested a four-month delay to give its parent company, Richmond, VA-based Dominion Resources, time to “[review] its deployment of capital resources available for pipeline construction; in particular, the relationship of the Greenbrier Pipeline project and opportunities for serving this [Mid-Atlantic] region from Dominion’s Cove Point LNG terminal in southern Maryland.”

Questions about market need have dogged the Greenbrier project from the very start. Before awarding a certificate a year ago, the Commission had ordered Greenbrier to justify the market need for the pipeline after hearing reports that proposed generation facilities to be served by the project might be canceled. At the time, Dominion tried to douse the agency’s concerns, assuring it that 540,000 Dth/d of the 600,000 Dth/d of project capacity was under precedent agreements.

But the situation changed by late 2003, forcing Greenbrier to put the project on hold then. The pipeline, which was proposed in July 2002, is designed to originate at Dominion’s Cornwell Station in Kanawha County, WV, with interconnections to Dominion Transmission and Tennessee Gas Pipeline, and to extend through southwestern Virginia into Granville County.

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