ANR

On June 1, Energy Transfer Partners’ new Rover Pipeline began service on its market segment from northwestern Ohio into southern Michigan, effectively sending nearly 800 MMcf/d of Marcellus/Utica gas production to Vector Pipeline and its northern destinations in Michigan, and, by extension, to the Dawn Hub. This latest in-service has already shuffled flows in the region and pushed back on other supplies targeting the same markets, including Canadian gas imports. And that’s even before the project has achieved its full expected capacity of 3.25 Bcf/d. Today, we analyze the early effects of Rover’s first flows to the Michigan/Dawn markets via Vector.

Energy Transfer Partners’ 3.25-Bcf/d Rover Pipeline recently began service on its next phase — Phase 1B — opening up additional natural gas receipt points for its Mainline A and increasing westbound gas flows from the Marcellus/Utica. The project will help relieve takeaway constraints for growing gas supply in the Marcellus/Utica region, while also increasing gas-on-gas competition for supply basins targeting the Ontario and Gulf Coast markets. This latest launch brings the project closer to achieving full completion, which is expected by the end of March 2018, but volumes on Rover are already changing regional flow and pricing dynamics. Today, we provide an update on Rover’s progress.

Energy Transfer Partners Rover Pipeline’s Mainline A first began flowing natural gas west from the Marcellus/Utica on September 1, and volumes are now averaging about 1.0 Bcf/d. The bulk of that is being delivered into TransCanada’s ANR Pipeline and, pipeline flow data shows some of that, either directly or indirectly, is making it all the way south to the Gulf Coast, specifically toward Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass LNG liquefaction and export facility (SPL). Deliveries to the facility have climbed to nearly 3.0 Bcf/d in recent weeks as the fourth liquefaction train was brought online. Along the way, the Rover-ANR combo is increasing competition with other pipes that feed ANR, including other Marcellus/Utica takeaway pipelines such as REX and Dominion. Today, we look at how Rover has changed flow patterns for gas targeting Gulf Coast demand.

With the Northeast natural gas market now dominated by physical flows from the Marcellus/Utica, Appalachia producers are targeting the Midwest, the Southeast and—the biggest prize of all—the LNG export projects under development along the Gulf Coast. Getting gas to market, however, requires a top-to-bottom re-plumbing of interstate pipelines originally designed to move gas from the Gulf Coast, not to it. In today’s episode of our series on moving gas out of the Marcellus/Utica we look at plans to add bi-directionality to pipelines within the Midwest and to the Gulf.

Over the past two years, natural gas production from the Appalachian region has soared with growth in the Marcellus pushing total production beyond 10.5 Bcf/d.  Just next door the Utica Shale is coming into focus with attractive economics due to the natural gas liquids, crude oil and condensate production.  The looming question is natural gas takeaway capacity.  With Marcellus production continuing to grow and Utica supplies coming on, production in the Northeast will soon exceed regional consumption and will need to be moved out of the region to other markets in the U.S. and Canada.  To accomplish this, new pipelines have been proposed and reversals of existing infrastructure that was originally built to transport gas into the region are being implemented. Today we review another of the proposed projects.