New 3.5 Mile Pipeline Project to Drill Under the Potomac River
Columbia Pipeline, now owned by TransCanada, recently (in March) filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to build a 3.5 mile, 8-inch pipeline that will carry natural gas from Pennsylvania to connect the Mountaineer Gas system in West Virginia with the Columbia Gas Pipeline in Pennsylvania. The purpose of the Eastern Panhandle Expansion project is to deliver natural gas via local distribution channels to a new industrial facility in Berkeley County, WV (scheduled to open in Fall 2017), and to provide gas to other local businesses and residents in the Tri-State area. Most of the pipeline crosses through a tiny sliver of Washington County, Maryland. The main issue with the project is that the pipeline will be drilled underneath the Potomac River, which serves as the border between WV and MD. That has antis in an uproar. The good news is that FERC has agreed to prepare an environmental assessment (EA) for the project. That is, this is now a real project with a high degree of likelihood it will get built…
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TransCanada, one of Canada’s leading midstream/pipeline companies, cooked up a deal last year to pipe natural gas from Canada’s West Coast to the East Coast in order to fend off cheap supplies of Marcellus/Utica gas that will flow into Canada when/if the NEXUS and Rover pipelines get built (see 
TransCanada, one of Canada’s leading midstream/pipeline companies, cooked up a deal last year to pipe natural gas from Canada’s West Coast to the East Coast in order to fend off cheap supplies of Marcellus/Utica gas that will flow into Canada when/if the NEXUS and Rover pipelines get built (see 
Companies in the oil and gas space, in particular midstream (pipeline) companies, have complicated ownership structures on paper. There are usually a number of subsidiary companies. Sometimes these companies have a “mother ship” which is owned by stockholders, and a subsidiary that is a master limited partnership (MLP), which is a different kind of corporate structure. MLPs don’t have shares of stock but instead issue units (about the same thing as shares of stock). MLPs give the unitholders certain tax advantages not offered to stockholders. Yes, its complicated. The important thing to know is that often these large pipeline companies have layers within layers. Which is the setup for this story. TransCanada, which purchased Columbia Pipeline Group last year for $10 billion (see 
In December, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) threw a little cold water on two important pipeline upgrades to carry more Marcellus/Utica gas to southern markets. A final environmental impact statement (EIS) was due from FERC for both the Mountaineer XPress and Gulf XPress projects no later than April 28, 2017. FERC said that the deadline would slip by three months due to reroutes and additional environment information requested (see 
You may recall that TransCanada, one of Canada’s leading midstream/pipeline companies, cooked up a deal last year to pipe natural gas from Canada’s West Coast to the East Coast in order to fend off cheap supplies of Marcellus/Utica gas that will flow into Canada when/if the NEXUS and Rover pipelines get built (see 
Last week the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved Columbia Pipeine’s Leach XPress and Rayne XPress pipeline projects (see 
Yesterday the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) voted to approve and issue a certificate to Columbia Pipeine’s Leach XPress and Rayne XPress pipeline projects. This is fantastic news for the Marcellus/Utica region. MDN has covered these projects from their beginning. In August 2014 Columbia, then a subsidiary of Nisource, committed to building the two projects that will flow Marcellus/Utica gas to the Gulf Coast (see 
In early November Canadian midstream giant TransCanada announced they were going on a fundraising bender to get money to pay for their recent $10 billion acquisition of Columbia Pipeline (see 
Earlier this week we ran the news that Canadian pipeline giant TransCanada’s plan to radically lower the cost to pipe natural gas from the western regions of Canada to the eastern part of the country, in an effort to undercut Marcellus/Utica gas from flooding into the region, failed (see 
You may recall that TransCanada, one of Canada’s leading midstream/pipeline companies, cooked up a deal to pipe natural gas from Canada’s West Coast to the East Coast in order to fend off cheap supplies of Marcellus/Utica gas that will flow into Canada when/if the NEXUS and Rover pipelines get built (see 
Two weeks ago MDN told you that TransCanada is attempting to block Marcellus/Utica gas from entering the eastern Canadian market by lowballing pipeline transportation costs from western Canada (see 
Last July Canadian-based TransCanada, famously known for wanting to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast (a plan that Obama obliterated), didn’t want to be left out of the most important midstream story of the century, so they bought Columbia Pipeline Group this year, closing on the sale in July (see