The 2,896 km Transco pipeline is the US’ largest-volume interstate natural gas pipeline system and a major supplier of natural gas to New York City.
This winter already has been a record-setter for Transco, with peak-day delivery records on three separate occasions. On those days, the demand for natural gas deliveries on Transco’s system was above and beyond the peaks that were attributed to the effect of the Polar Vortex and other brutal cold weather across all of the pipeline’s market areas.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) recently published its final environmental review of Transco’s Rockaway Lateral and Northeast Connector expansions. The FERC action is a key step toward the commission’s decision on the projects, which is expected this spring. Transco expects to begin construction in May and bring the projects into service in November this year.
The Rockaway Lateral and Northeast Connector are among some $US5 billion of energy-infrastructure investments that Williams Partners expects to make in the Transco system over the 2013 to 2017 time frame to connect growing market demand with new natural gas supplies. Those expansions are designed to add more than 50 per cent to Transco’s capacity to deliver natural gas.
Williams Partners plans to spend approximately $US280 million on its Rockaway Lateral and Northeast Connector projects, for 5 km of new Transco pipeline and related facilities in New York, as well as equipment to increase compression at three existing Transco facilities in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
With a daily delivery capacity of 647,000 dekatherms, the Rockaway Lateral will provide an additional supply-delivery connection into the National Grid distribution system, which delivers natural gas to 1.25 million customers in Brooklyn and Queens.
The Rockaway Lateral is designed to enhance the security and reliability of supply for Transco’s customer, National Grid. It also increases by about 10 percent the amount of natural gas that the Transco system can deliver to National Grid.
Williams Partners has also completed the transaction to acquire Williams’ currently in-service Alberta, Canada operations for $US1.2 billion.
The assets include an oil sands offgas processing plant near Fort McMurray, Alberta, approximately 260 miles of NGL and olefins pipelines, as well as an NGL/olefins fractionation facility and butylene/butane splitter facility at Redwater, Alberta. Williams Partners also acquired an in-progress expansion project at the Redwater facility.