Williams CEO: Natural Gas is “Five Times Cheaper than Crude Oil”
The President and CEO of pipeline giant Williams is Alan Armstrong. He’s been through some big battles over the years, like the aborted effort to buy his company (see Energy Transfer Makes “Indecent Proposal” to Buy Williams for $48B). Armstrong has a unique perspective in leading Williams for the past 13 years. He recently sat for an interview with McKinsey & Company (a huge consulting company). Armstrong had some interesting things to say about natural gas, pipelines, power generation, hydrogen, and prices. Armstrong also discussed how the pipeline business has morphed into a large, interconnected network over the past decade.
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Last week, in reporting on pipeline giant Williams’ first quarter 2024 update, we told you about a major new project Williams has begun to replace (upgrade) 112 mainline compressor units with state-of-the-art low-emission turbines and electric drive units on the Transco and Northwest Pipe (see 
Pipeline giant Williams, with major assets in the Marcellus/Utica and the owner of the mighty Transco pipeline that flows huge quantities of M-U gas south and southwest, issued its first quarter 2024 update yesterday. CEO Alan Armstrong said in prepared remarks that the company, which operates in just about every region of the country, has “20 high-return projects in execution across our business.” That’s 20 pipeline or storage projects of various kinds, many of them in the M-U region. The projects include “approximately 3.1 Bcf per day of expansion on Transco, which equates to a 15% increase in fully contracted long-term capacity that will be coming online over the next few years.” Transco current flows a maximum of 18.6 Bcf/d (billion cubic feet per day). It’s going to expand by another 3.1 Bcf/d!
We’re sad but not surprised. The last time we reported on Williams’ Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) Project slated for New York was last June when Williams asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for a time extension to build it (see 
Last year, Williams filed a formal application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to upgrade Transco pipeline’s capacity in Alabama and Georgia (see 
A three-judge panel from the federal D.C. Circuit spent two hours on Friday hearing arguments for and against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) approval of Williams’ Regional Energy Access Expansion (REAE) project. REAE is an expansion of the mighty Transco pipeline in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to deliver an extra 829 MMcf/d of Marcellus gas to PA, NJ, and Maryland. Part of the project was done and went online last year (see 
Two related pipeline projects in southeast Virginia now have all regulatory approvals in hand, and the projects will soon begin construction. Columbia Gas Transmission (a subsidiary of TC Energy) applied with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to build the Virginia Reliability Project (VRP), which includes two new compressor units and the replacement of existing pipeline. VRP will dig up, replace, and double the size of two sections, or about 48 miles, of the Columbia Gas pipeline between Chesapeake and Petersburg. Williams’ Commonwealth Energy Connector Project will feed VRP by building six miles of new pipeline within Transco’s existing right-of-way in Virginia, expanding a meter station, and building a 30,500-hp electric motor-drive compressor. Both projects received final approval by FERC in November (see 
Williams is a powerhouse pipeline company. Williams operates more than 33,000 miles of pipelines in the U.S. and flows approximately one-third of the natural gas used in our country through those pipelines. Massive! The CEO of Williams, Alan Armstrong, is (or was) in Dubai for the United Nations COP28 climate meeting. He was there to preach the gospel of natural gas as the best way, the near-term way, to lower carbon dioxide emissions across the planet. He has proof to back up his claims. The U.S. is the only major country on earth to lower CO2 emissions since 2005. How? By switching from coal to natural gas for power generation.
Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line (Transco) is a natural gas pipeline that initially brought gas from the Gulf Coast of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, through Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania to deliver gas to the New Jersey and New York City area. It is owned and operated by Williams. With the advent of the shale revolution, Transco was converted to be bidirectional, flowing Marcellus/Utica gas south to as far as Texas. Transco now transports approximately 15% of the nation’s natural gas! It is a massive and vital pipeline. With the imminent start of the Mountain Valley Pipeline and an extra 2 Bcf/d flowing from the Marcellus to Transco’s Station 165 in Pittsylvania County, VA, how will Transco handle the extra volumes?
Some exciting news to share. Earlier this month, midstream giant Williams gave a green light to proceed with a new Transco pipeline expansion project called the Southeast Supply Enhancement. The project will flow an extra 1.4 Bcf/d (billion cubic feet per day) of Marcellus/Utica molecules southward along the Transco pipeline system, to deliver those molecules to states in the southern U.S. Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) will flow an extra 2 Bcf/d of M-U molecules to southern Virginia. Williams’ Southeast Supply Enhancement promises to flow some of those molecules further south (and southwest). This is a major new pipeline initiative that snuck up on us.