TGP

For several years now, the biggest hurdle to natural gas production growth in the Marcellus/Utica was takeaway constraints — there simply wasn’t enough capacity on gas pipelines out of Appalachia to support a significant bump-up in regional output. Things have been changing though. The Mountain Valley Pipeline and a slew of expansion projects along Transco are allowing increasing volumes of gas to move to and through Virginia and the Carolinas. The proposed Borealis Pipeline across Ohio would enable up to 2 Bcf/d to move down the Texas Gas Transmission system to the Gulf Coast. And, as we discuss in today’s RBN blog, Kinder Morgan is planning several major projects in the Deep South — including the 2.1-Bcf/d Mississippi Crossing and 1.3-Bcf/d South System Expansion 4 projects — to move more gas into Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. 

The site of Cheniere Energy’s new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal in Corpus Christi is only a short drive from the heart of the Eagle Ford. But for supply diversity’s sake, Cheniere won’t depend only on Eagle Ford gas for supply—far from it, in fact. Plans are in the works to enable Corpus Christi LNG’s five planned liquefaction “trains” to access gas from a wide variety of shale plays and basins, in some cases moving gas long-distance. Today, we continue our look at the challenges of securing and moving huge volumes of gas to LNG export terminals, the emerging epicenters of U.S. gas demand.

Producers in the Marcellus and Utica shale plays could be moving a lot more natural gas into New England, if only there was enough pipeline capacity to get it there. An increasingly gas-hungry neighbor to the nation’s most prolific production area, New England has added precious little capacity to transport gas, and the fates of game-changing pipeline projects that have been proposed hang in the balance. The region’s unique gas-delivery challenges, their market impacts and possible solutions are the subject of RBN Energy’s newly released Drill Down report, “Please Come To Boston—New England’s Ongoing Gas-Supply Dilemma”. Today, we provide a preview, and highlight some of the report’s findings.

Natural gas imports into the Northeast US from Canada have fallen to around 1 Bcf/d from 3 Bcf/d in 2008. Infrastructure projects are underway or planned to replace Canadian supplies with gas from rapidly expanding Marcellus and Utica production. US gas is already flowing into Ontario at Niagara and will flow into Dawn if one or more Utica gas export projects are built. . Meantime the proposed Constitution pipeline from the Eastern Marcellus to New York would replace Canadian supplies into New York on the Iroquois pipeline. Today we review the next pieces of the reversal puzzle.

Natural gas prices at New England City Gates spiked up $6/MMBtu during a recent cold spell in November only to fall back $4/MMBtu last Friday (November 30, 2012) on forecasts of warmer weather. There have been three periods of price volatility in New England during the past year.

Northeast bound interstate natural gas pipeline companies are busy reconfiguring their assets to accommodate significant supply growth expected by 2017. At the same time, regional natural gas supply and distribution companies are taking advantage of the opportunities that new local production brings.

Northeast regional interstate pipeline companies are coming to terms with significant supply growth expected between now and 2017. Companies that traditionally delivered natural gas to the Northeast from outside the region are busy reconfiguring their assets.

In two previous postings in this series we examined the major infrastructure projects being developed by interstate natural gas pipelines in response to the growth of Northeast natural gas production in the Marcellus shale.  We reviewed projects developed by Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP), and then Spectra Energy (see TGP and Spectra). This time we look at the projects being pursued by Williams Companies through it Transcontinental Gas Pipeline Company (Transco) and its Master Limited Partnership (MLP) Williams Partners. 

<p>Northeast regional interstate pipeline companies are coming to terms with an extra 7 Bcf/d of new Marcellus production in the past two years and maybe another 10 Bcf/d of growth between now and 2017.</p>

Faced with 7 Bcf/d of new Marcellus production over the past couple of years and possibly another 10 Bcf/d of production growth coming from the Northeast region between now and 2017, the interstate pipeline companies that traditionally delivered natural gas to the Northeast from outside the region have found it necessary to completely o reconfigure their assets. In effect, gas supplies that traditionally have originated from the Gulf Coast are being displaced by Marcellus production.  The resulting pipeline projects are expanding capacity and redirecting flows to provide new shippers with competitive access to existing markets.  Today we look at the types of pipeline projects going on and then zero in on Tennessee Gas Pipeline.