Rover Natural Gas Pipeline in Ohio Begins Partial Service

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Completed sections of Energy Transfer Partners' (NYSE: ETP) (Dallas, Texas) $4.2 billion Rover Pipeline can now transport natural gas. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) last week approved a request by the company to put the 212-mile section from Cadiz, Ohio, to Defiance, Ohio, into service. Industrial Info is tracking 28 individual projects relating to the pipeline, which ran into state and federal regulatory issues earlier this year.

The 42-inch-diameter Phase 1A portion of the pipeline was scheduled to begin service August 31, Energy Transfer Partners said in a press statement. The entire 713-mile pipeline, when completed, will transport up to 3.25 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from the Marcellus and Utica Shale production areas to markets across the U.S., as well as into the Union Gas Dawn Storage Hub in Ontario, Canada. For more information, see Industrial Info's project report.

In May, FERC halted new horizontal directional drilling (HDD) on the pipeline after drilling fluid was released into an Ohio wetland area. The drilling fluid had been contaminated with diesel fuel. For related information, see August 10, 2017, article - Energy Transfer Keeps Other Projects Going as it Deals with Rover Headaches and May 12, 2017, article - Here's (Drilling) Mud in Your Eye: Regulatory Troubles Not Over for Rover.

FERC said in an August 31 letter to Energy Transfer Partners that the company had made progress in cleaning up the spill.

"Likewise, the removal of drilling mud and cuttings from the Tuscarawas wetland has been substantially completed, with disposal being reviewed and monitored by the Ohio EPA [Environmental Protection Agency]," wrote Rich McGuire, FERC director Division of Gas -- Environment and Engineering. "We have also reviewed and hereby approve your Tuscarawas River Wetland Restoration Plan and your Groundwater Monitoring Program for water wells in the vicinity of the above-mentioned affected sites, and note that both the wetland restoration plan and the well monitoring program have also been approved by the Ohio EPA."

However, the authorization to start service "does not bear on or impact the Office of Enforcement's ongoing investigation into the composition of the drilling fluid at the Tuscarawas River horizontal directional drill, and the causes thereof," McGuire wrote.

The majority of the Rover Pipeline will be utilized by customers on the U.S. segments of the pipeline, including multiple take-off points in Michigan, West Virginia and Ohio. The Michigan and Ohio access points interconnect with multiple local distribution company gas systems serving customers throughout the states, and in West Virginia, the gas will be delivered to multiple take-off points in the Northeast, Gulf Coast and the East Coast. The volume not consumed in the U.S. will be transported to the Union Gas Hub in Canada, where it will be traded on the open market, for consumption either back in the United States, in Michigan, into the Northeast such as New York or New Jersey, or to customers in Canada.

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