EQT Continues Permitting Process for Mountain Valley Natural Gas Pipeline

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--EQT Corporation (NYSE: EQT) (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) continues to target a late 2018 in-service date for the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) system, which will span 300 miles from northwestern West Virginia to southern Virginia, company executives said Thursday. Industrial Info is tracking four active projects that are linked to the pipeline, which would transport up to 2 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas sourced in the Marcellus and Utica shales to the existing Transcontinental Gas Pipeline system.

The project is in the permitting phase. Noting that the status of the pipeline is one of the top questions on investors' minds, Steven Schlotterbeck, president of exploration and production, noted during the company's fourth-quarter 2016 earnings presentation that EQT received the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) draft environmental impact statement (EIS) on the project, and that the comment period for the draft EIS ended in late December.

"We are currently preparing responses to a FERC Environmental Information Request, which is typical for the process, as the commission works to develop the final EIS. We continue to target a late 2018 in-service date," Schlotterbeck said.

"We are responding to a long list of questions, which seems to be the norm in today's environment and we continue to hope to get it [the final EIS] on time. I think, we understand it, there is a possibility that the [final EIS] could be delayed." Even so, he continued, "we're still optimistic that we're on schedule and we'll be able to get this thing in line by the end of 2018."

"I think the nature of the construction process is the critical path on the MVP project ... around the compressor station construction, about a 14-month timeframe to do that," Schlotterbeck said. "The next item on the critical path is the actual construction of the line, which is dependent on our ability to be able to clear trees."

EQT reported a net loss of $453 million for 2016, compared with a net profit of $85.2 million in 2015.

"The high-level story for the year was very strong volume growth in a lower commodity price environment," said EQT Chief Financial Officer Robert J. McNally. Production volumes in 2016 were 26% higher in 2016 than in 2015.

EQT expects capital expenditures of $1.5 billion in 2017, compared with $1 billion in 2016.

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