Nearly seven years after receiving federal certification to build its 303-mile, 2 million Dth/d natural gas conduit, Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC (MVP) has requested FERC authorization to place the project into service.
MVP in a written request filed by its legal counsel Monday asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to approve its in-service request by May 23.
Construction on the Appalachian takeaway pipeline resumed last summer after an act of Congress rescued the long-delayed project from myriad legal and regulatory setbacks.
The pipeline is “now nearing completion and will be ready for service in May,” MVP told FERC.
As of Monday’s filing date, MVP had completed construction on four interconnect facilities and all three compressor stations, with all of the project’s waterbody and wetland crossings also checked off the developer’s to-do list, MVP said.
“Mountain Valley expects all remaining segments to be welded by early May and all project facilities to be mechanically complete by May 22,” the developer told FERC.
MVP is a joint venture of Equitrans Midstream Corp., NextEra Capital Holdings Inc., Con Edison Transmission Inc., WGL Midstream MVP LLC and RGC Midstream LLC. The project is designed to transport production from West Virginia to interconnect with Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co. (aka Transco) in Pittsylvania County, VA.
The tentative startup date for MVP could see the pipeline uncork more Appalachian Basin natural gas supplies just in time for summer demand.
Still, the project is poised to enter service at a time when gas-weighted producers have been curtailing output in the face of swollen storage and weak prices.
EQT Corp., which recently announced an agreement to recombine with Equitrans Midstream, is one of the natural gas heavyweights that announced plans to limit production in 2024. EQT, the largest U.S. natural gas producer, is set to discuss its 1Q2024 results on Wednesday.
According to recent Forward Look data, the forward curves for Eastern Gas South and Transco Zone 5 show market participants anticipating a ramp-up in prices by late 2024 and into 2025, consistent with the trajectory of pricing at benchmark Henry Hub.
In the meantime, Eastern Gas South basis has come under pressure over the past week for May and June of 2024, Forward Look data show. Prices there were trading at a 43.6-cent discount to the national benchmark as of Monday, down 5.5 cents from a week earlier.
