It takes a lot longer these days to get a big pipeline approved than it used to. In April 2014, Dominion promoted an open season for what would later become the $5 billion, 594-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline–a natural gas pipeline that will stretch from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina. By September 2014, Dominion said they had enough commitment to move forward with the project (see Dominion Commits to Major New Marcellus/Utica Pipeline Project). Little did Duke Energy and Piedmont Natural Gas (now owned by Duke) know that in signing up for the project, it still wouldn’t be built more than three years later. True fact: It only took 410 days to build the Empire State Building, from the first shovel of dirt moved to opening the doors on the completed building. Some 102 stories high, tallest building in the world for decades. Nowadays it takes half a decade just to get a pipeline approved! This is nuts, folks. At any rate, Duke Energy and Piedmont have just filed a request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to extend the contracts they signed to use Atlantic Coast because as of June 30, 2017, those contracts expire if the pipeline isn’t built. Duke is interested in seeing the pipeline get built, so they can use it…
