With a daily delivery capacity of 647 MMcf/d, the Rockaway Delivery Lateral provides an additional supply-delivery connection between Williams’ Transco transmission pipeline and the National Grid distribution system, which provides local natural gas service to 1.8 million customers in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and Long Island.
The Rockaway project adds 5.1 km of new Transco pipeline and related facilities in New York. Most of the pipeline lateral was constructed offshore using subsurface directional drilling technology, allowing Williams to avoid all impacts to the beach, near-shore areas, as well as onshore portions of Jacob Riis Park.
The Northeast Connector project consists of equipment to increase compression at three existing Transco facilities in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and provides 100 MMcf/d of firm transportation capacity from Transco’s Station 195 in southeastern Pennsylvania to the Rockaway Delivery Lateral.
The projects were developed to help meet the long-term clean energy needs of New York City while significantly enhancing reliability and serving growth on the National Grid system. The Rockaway Delivery Lateral project was specifically cited in New York City’s PLANYC 2030 as an important part of achieving the city’s goal of eliminating the use of high sulfur fuel oil and realising some of its clean-air goals.
Transco, the US’s largest-volume and fastest-growing interstate natural gas pipeline system, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Williams Partners L.P.