Interstate

NiSource Midstream Services (NMS) is in “advanced discussions with a producer counterparty” about a potential joint venture (JV) to focus on gathering, processing and transporting in eastern Ohio’s Utica Shale, NiSource Inc. officials said Tuesday.

Williams Partners LP has modified the open season for Atlantic Access, a proposed expansion of its Transco interstate pipeline, as a result of discussions with potential shippers (see Shale Daily, Feb. 7). Transco is increasing the total firm transportation capacity, offering additional firm transportation paths and revising the proposed in-service date to December 2015. The revised open season runs through July 13. Atlantic Access would connect gas supplies originating in western West Virginia and Pennsylvania to markets in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast and Gulf Coast regions. Transco is now proposing a total of six firm transportation paths under the project. Two of the three original paths have been fully subscribed. For customer inquiries, contact Gary Duvall at (713) 215-2589.

Williams Partners LP is holding a binding open season through April 25 for capacity on an expansion of its interstate Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line (Transco) to provide incremental firm transportation to markets in southern Virginia and northern North Carolina by 2015.

D’Lo Gas Storage LLC on Thursday launched a nonbinding open season to gauge market interest in a multicycle salt cavern, an interstate natural gas storage facility to be sited in Simpson County, MS.

FERC Thursday issued Sawgrass Storage LLC a certificate to convert a depleted natural gas reservoir in northern Louisiana to an interstate gas storage facility that would serve gas and power markets in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana.

ExxonMobil Corp., which made strategic decisions in recent years to capture massive unconventional shale gas and tight oil resources in North America, is now seeing the continent undergoing a “historic energy transformation,” CEO Rex Tillerson said Friday.

The midstream services unit of NiSource Gas Transmission and Storage (NGT&S) plans to develop a wet and dry gas gathering system to serve the Utica Shale in eastern Ohio.

In response to a request from interstate natural gas pipeline operators, the Pipeline Hazardous Materials and Safety Administration (PHMSA) has agreed to extend for another month the comment periods for two pending rulemakings for changing federal pipeline rules in response to a new safety law passed by Congress (see Daily GPI, Dec. 15, 2011).

A collection of energy players announced plans Wednesday to expand a major interstate pipeline to accommodate emerging shale gas supplies from Ohio.