The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued draft environmental clearance last Thursday to Greenbrier Pipeline Co. LLC’s $497 million pipeline project that, when completed, would serve the natural gas demands of the burgeoning power generation market in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic regions, primarily in Virginia and North Carolina.

“We have determined that construction and operation of the Greenbrier Pipeline project would result in mostly limited, but some permanent, adverse environmental impacts,” but “we have developed mitigation measures that we believe would appropriately and reasonably reduce the environmental impacts resulting from construction and operation of the project,” said the FERC staff in its draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) on the West Virginia-to-North Carolina pipeline project.

Staff said its favorable DEIS was based on four factors: 1) about 37% of the pipeline construction would be within or parallel to an existing right-of-way; 2) the pipeline would use horizontal directional drilling to cross four rivers and the Blue Ridge Parkway; 3) consultation and liaison with the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service; and 4) consultation with the State Historic Preservation Office of each affected state, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, and, if needed, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

FERC is scheduled to consider a preliminary determination on non-environmental issues for the Greenbrier Pipeline at its next regular meeting on Oct. 30 [CP02-396].

The Greenbrier Pipeline, which has elicited numerous landowner protests, would originate in Kanawha County, WV, with interconnections to Dominion Transmission Inc. and Tennessee Gas Pipeline, and extend through southwestern Virginia and into Granville County, NC. The partners in the pipe project are Dominion and Piedmont Natural Gas, with a one-third stake. Piedmont serves 700,000 local distribution customers in North Carolina.

The project would consist of 276 miles of mainline and three laterals totaling 3.8 miles, as well as two compressor stations and three meter stations. It is expected to initially transport up to 600,000 Dth/d of gas to markets in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast regions starting in June 2005. Gas supplies delivered from Dominion Transmission and Tennessee into Greenbrier near Charleston, WV, would come from the Appalachian, Canadian, Gulf Coast and Mid-Continent regions or storage facilities operated by Dominion.

The proposed Greenbrier line was conceived as a competitive alternative to Transcontinental Gas Pipeline’s Momentum project. FERC granted a certificate last February to the $197 million Momentum project, which would increase capacity on Transco’s mainline by 358,898 Dth/d. The project is targeted for in-service on May 1, 2003.

Both Greenbrier and Momentum are competing for about 10,000 MW of new gas-fired power generation that is planned for Virginia and North Carolina by 2007, which translates to about 1.8 Bcf/d of incremental growth.

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