For Marcellus Shale producers, the gift-receiving season begins this week and continues through the end of the year in the form of additional pipeline takeaway capacity. Multiple projects are slated to come online between Thursday and the end of the year, giving Marcellus producers increased access to markets, and presumably better prices for their gas.

The most significant expansions coming up, according to Bentek Energy LLC’s Kyle Martinez, an energy analyst, are National Fuel Gas Supply Corp.’s Northern Access Project, which is expected to enter service in November. It will increase capacity from the company’s interconnection with Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) at Ellisburg, PA, to the TransCanada Pipeline at Niagara, near Niagara Falls, NY.

Additionally, Tennessee Gas Pipe Line’s (TGP) Northeast Supply Diversification Project will provide up to 250,000 Dth/d of incremental firm capacity from the Marcellus along the pipeline’s 300 Line to serve markets in New England and the Niagara Falls area of New York. It is slated to come online Thursday (Nov. 1). This project is of particular note, too, said Martinez, who added that it will work in concert with Dominion’s Ellisburg to Craigs project, which is to come online next month and provide 150,000 Dth/d of Marcellus capacity.

Martinez said National Fuel’s Northern Access and TGP’s Supply Diversification projects should give some price support in Tennessee’s Zone 4, an area that has been plagued by low prices due to too much Marcellus gas trying to get to market. However, Martinez said the break from low prices would likely only be temporary. “There’s just so much production and wells that are waiting to come online,” he said.

Dominion’s Northeast Expansion also is slated to come online in November. It will provide 200,000 Dth/d of firm capacity to take Marcellus gas to the Leidy Hub. However, according to Martinez, getting gas into Leidy could prove to be difficult as Transco’s Leidy Line has been running full at about 1.6 Bcf/d ever since Penn Virginia Resource Partners LP’s Wyoming Pipeline system came online a few weeks back (see Shale Daily, Oct. 3).

Also expected to enter service this week:

Martinez said Inergy Midstream’s Inergy Marc 1 Pipeline Project in Bradford and Sullivan counties, PA, had been expected to enter service next month. The company said that will now be by the end of the year. The project is a 39-mile, 30-inch diameter bi-directional pipeline connecting Inergy’s Stagecoach South Lateral at Tennessee Gas Pipe Line’s (TGP) 300 Line to Transco’s Leidy Line. Firm capacity is 550 MMcf/d. Together with Inergy’s 325 MMcf/d North-South Project, which entered service last December, it will allow shippers to transport gas bi-directionally on a firm basis 75 miles between the Millennium Pipeline and Transco’s Leidy Line and all points in between.

And in December the first phase of Dominion’s Natrium project is expected to enter service, providing 200 MMcf/d of processing capacity and 36,000 b/d of fractionation capacity to handle Marcellus production.