Fight in SC Turns Nasty with One Pipeline Company Attacking Another
We hate to see internal fighting and bickering within the oil and gas industry. We (as an industry) have a hard enough time battling the crazies of the environmental left. Yet infighting has erupted over a plan to run a pipeline to a proposed gas-fired power plant in South Carolina. In February 2024, the South Carolina Public Service Commission approved a proposed project to build a 1,020-megawatt (MW) gas-fired power plant in the state’s Lowcountry, in Colleton County (see SC PSC Approves Gas-Fired Power Plant Proposed for Edisto River). The project is a 50/50 partnership between Dominion Energy (formerly South Carolina Electric & Gas) and Santee Cooper (South Carolina’s state-owned electric and water utility). The plan calls for Texas-based Kinder Morgan (KM) to build a pipeline to feed the plant. However, there are no details about that pipeline (so far). Another pipeline company, South Carolina-based Carolina Gas Transmission (CGT), wants to build it and called out Dominion and Santee Cooper in a full-page ad. Read More “Fight in SC Turns Nasty with One Pipeline Company Attacking Another”
Ever so gradually, pipeline capacity to transport Marcellus/Utica molecules to other markets, particularly the Deep South, has been increasing. And it continues to grow, gradually. Two projects from Kinder Morgan aim to help that effort. The 2.1-Bcf/d Mississippi Crossing (MSX) and 1.3-Bcf/d South System Expansion 4 (SSE4) projects will move more Marcellus/Utica gas into Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. RBN Energy connects the dots. 
We have some exciting news to share from Kinder Morgan. As part of the company’s quarterly update, KM provided details about eight pipeline projects that are currently being planned or built. Four of the eight will flow Marcellus/Utica molecules. One of the four is brand new: A new greenfield expansion of the Elba Express pipeline into South Carolina to serve growing demand for natural gas in the state. The $431 million Elba Express Bridge project is designed to provide 325 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of firm transportation capacity. KM CEO Kim Dang said on a conference call that the project is “easily expandable to over a Bcf a day.” 
Last August, MDN told you about several potential new pipeline projects under consideration to help feed new data centers and artificial intelligence (AI) operations, most of them located in the southeastern U.S. (see 
We have news of a brand new greenfield pipeline project (a rarity these days) that has the potential to flow Marcellus/Utica molecules to the Southeastern U.S. Yesterday, Kinder Morgan’s mighty Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) subsidiary announced a final investment decision (FID) to build the Mississippi Crossing Project (MSX Project) after securing long-term, binding transportation agreements with customers for all the capacity. The $1.4 billion project involves the construction of nearly 206 miles of 42-inch and 36-inch pipeline and two new compressor stations aimed at flowing 1.5 Bcf/d of natural gas. MSX will compete with another recently announced project, the Kosciusko Junction Pipeline Project from Boardwalk (see 
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (6th Circuit) slammed the brakes on a pipeline project in Tennessee on Friday. In January, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a certificate of public convenience for Kinder Morgan’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) subsidiary to build the Cumberland Project, a 32-mile, 30-inch pipeline to feed 245 MMcf/d of natural gas (from the Marcellus/Utica) to the Tennessee Valey Authority’s (TVA) proposed Cumberland gas-fired power plant. 
What had been a regular stream of talk about providing power to data centers and artificial intelligence (AI) has become a torrent. There is a clear connection between data centers and the natural gas industry. This most recent round of quarterly financial updates by the biggest of the big pipeline companies (all of which have a huge presence in the Marcellus/Utica) reveals a new opportunity: building natgas pipelines directly to data centers. Why? Because increasingly those data centers are considering making their own power.
Kinder Morgan (KM), owner and operator of the mighty Tennessee Gas Pipeline along with many other pipeline systems, issued its second quarter update yesterday. It was clear from the materials and the comments made during the conference call that KM is high on natural gas. The company believes natgas has a rosy future, and KM is investing to expand pipelines to flow more natgas. On the call, company CEO Kim Dang said, “[W]e’re having commercial discussions on over 5 Bcf a day of opportunities related to power demand, and that includes the 1.6 of data center demand.” She went on to say the company believes the growth in natural gas production and use between now and 2030 will be “well in excess of the 20 Bcf a day.” Another 20 Bcf/d in the next five years!
Tennessee Gas Pipeline’s (TGP) plan to flow an extra 115 MMcf/d of Marcellus gas to Westchester County, NY, and New York City to be used for Consolidated Edison customers is called the East 300 Upgrade Project. The project took a giant leap forward in April 2022 when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued permits that allow TGP to upgrade two existing compressor stations (in PA), and build a brand new compressor station in West Milford (Passaic County, NJ), just across the border and not far from Westchester County (see 
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is the sixth-largest power supplier and the largest public utility in the country. In 2021, MDN told you that TVA is spending over $1 billion to replace six coal-fired plants with natgas-fired turbines (see 
In April 2022, MDN reported that the top brass at Kinder Morgan, the owner and operator of the Elba Island LNG export facility (also known as Southern LNG), was considering an expansion of its modestly-sized facility (see