August 2019, Vol. 246, No. 8
Projects
EQM Raises Cost, Delays Timing of Mountain Valley Pipeline
EQM Midstream Partners raised the estimated cost of its 303-mile (488-km) Mountain Valley natural gas pipeline from West Virginia to Virginia to $4.8 billion and delayed the projected completion to mid-2020 due to ongoing legal and regulatory challenges.
That is up from the company’s last estimate of $4.6 billion and a target to complete the project in the fourth quarter of 2019, according to Reuters.
EQM made the comments in a federal regulatory filing in which the company said it had submitted a land exchange proposal to the federal government in an effort to enable the pipe to cross the Appalachian Trail.
Crossing the trail became an issue after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in December said the U.S. Forest Service lacked authority to issue a permit for another gas pipe, Dominion Energy Inc’s $7-7.5 billion Atlantic Coast, to cross the Appalachian Trail on federal land. That case is on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
EQM’s land exchange proposal would grant the federal government full ownership of private lands crossed by the Appalachian Trail, including certain private land located adjacent to the Jefferson National Forest.
When EQM started construction in February 2018, it estimated Mountain Valley would cost about $3.5 billion and be completed by the end of 2018. P&GJ
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