Page 8 - NorthAmOil Week 01

NorthAmOil PIPELINES & TRANSPORT
NorthAmOil
Williams completes Gateway Expansion ahead of schedule
NEW JERSEY
WILLIAMS announced on December 31 that it had brought its Gateway Expansion project in New Jersey into full service, roughly 11 months ahead of schedule.
The project is an expansion of the existing Transco pipeline system, providing 65,000 dekatherms (1.8mn cubic metres) per day of incremental firm transportation capacity to serve PSEG Power and UGI Energy Services. In a statement, Williams attributed the early in-service date to expedited project execution and construction in close co-ordination with its customers, among other factors.
UGI is a supplier, marketer and midstream services provider, while PSEG operates a mix of mainly nuclear and natural gas plants, as well as a growing renewable portfolio. The plants are located in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Maryland and Hawaii.
The Gateway Expansion provides enough gas supply capacity to meet the daily home heating, hot water and cooking needs of about 280,000 homes, Williams said. The project’s start-up comes in time for the 2019-20 winter heating season.
The project required the installation of addi- tional electric horsepower at an existing Transco compressor station in Essex County. It also required modifications to an existing metering station in Essex County, as well as the replace- ment of another existing meter station in Passaic County.
Construction on the project began in early
2019, and start-up was previously targeted for November 2020. Williams said it maximised the use of existing pipeline infrastructure and con- fined virtually all project activities to Transco’s current footprint in New Jersey in an attempt to minimise the expansion’s community and envi- ronmental impacts.
The company’s comments come as other infrastructure operators in the US Northeast struggle to build new gas pipelines as a result of local opposition and regulatory delays. Among these is PennEast Pipeline, which asked the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on December 30 to extend its deadline to complete construction to January 2022. The project’s current federal approval expires on Jan- uary 19, but the start of construction remains on hold as a fight over state permits in New Jersey and Pennsylvania continues. Indeed, PennEast’s bid to obtain a Clean Water Act permit from New Jersey could soon head to the US Supreme Court.
Williams’ success with the Gateway expan- sion, however, illustrates that not all gas pipeline projects in the US Northeast will be held up by regulatory delays and litigation.
The expansion has increased the Transco sys- tem’s design capacity to 17.3mn dekatherms (475 mcm) per day. The system consists of roughly 10,000 miles (16,000km) of pipeline stretch- ing between South Texas and New York City. Transco reaches 12 states in the US Southeast and on the Atlantic Seaboard in total.™
Williams attributed the early in-service date to expedited project execution and construction in close co- ordination with its customers.
P8
w w w. N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 01
08•January•2020