July 2015, Vol. 242, No. 7

Web Exclusive

Rockaway Lateral, Northeast Connector Projects Complete, Flowing to NYC

TULSA, OK – Williams announced on Friday it has placed into service its Rockaway Delivery Lateral and Northeast Connector projects, increasing natural gas delivery capacity to Brooklyn and Queens and helping New York City meet its clean-air goals.

With a daily delivery capacity of 647,000 dekatherms, 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 3.2 miles of new Transco pipeline and related facilities in New York. The Northeast Connector project consists of equipment to increase compression at three existing Transco facilities in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and provides 100,000 dekatherms per day 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 whileenhancing 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 realizing some of its clean-air goals.

“As we learned during Superstorm Sandy – and were harshly reminded during these past two record setting cold winters – a reliable and resilient supply of energy is critical to the local New York and Long Island communities we serve,” said National Grid New York President Ken Daly.

Most of the Rockaway 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. In addition, Williams coordinated with the National Park Service to develop a plan to place a state-of-the-art, 60,000-square-foot meter and regulator station inside two of the abandoned airplane hangar buildings on Floyd Bennett Field, part of Gateway National Recreation Area.

Williams has partnered with the Park Service to rehabilitate the exterior of the hangars to their historically accurate original condition. At the same time, the agreement generates lease payments paid by Williams to the Park Service that can be used to address other critical park needs, including natural resource protection and enhanced visitor services.
“These were extremely unique projects, balancing the many challenges of siting new pipeline infrastructure in a mature urban area,” said Rory Miller, senior vice president of Williams Partners’ Atlantic-Gulf operating area.

Transco, the nation’s largest-volume and fastest-growing interstate natural gas pipeline system, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Williams Partners L.P., of which Williams owns 60%, including the general-partner interest. Transco delivers natural gas to customers through its 10,200-mile pipeline network whose mainline extends nearly 1,800 miles between South Texas and New York City.