Equitrans US Mountain Valley natgas pipe on track for Q1 completion
Oct 31 (Reuters) - Equitrans Midstream remains on track to complete the Mountain Valley natural gas pipeline from West Virginia to Virginia in the first quarter of 2024 at an estimated cost of $7.2 billion, U.S. energy company Equitrans Midstream said on Tuesday.
That is the same timeline and cost that the company reported in mid October, which was a revision from a prior completion estimate of the end of 2023 and a cost of around $6.6 billion.
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Equitrans spoke about Mountain Valley in its third quarter earnings report, which beat estimates.
Mountain Valley is the only big gas pipeline under construction in the U.S. Northeast. It has encountered numerous regulatory and court fights that have stopped work several times since construction began in 2018.
The pipe, which is key to unlocking gas supplies from Appalachia, the nation's biggest shale gas-producing region, needed a bill from the U.S. Congress that was signed into law by the president and help from the Supreme Court before it could restart construction.
In its earnings release, Equitrans said it recorded a $7.5 million expense related to a one-time cash bonus awarded to the company's CEO, Thomas Karam, for his efforts in the inclusion of Mountain Valley in the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, the federal law that enabled construction to start again.
When Mountain Valley started construction in February 2018, Equitrans estimated the 2.0 billion cubic feet per day project would cost about $3.5 billion and enter service by late 2018.
The 303-mile (488-kilometre) Mountain Valley project is owned by units of Equitrans, the lead partner building the pipe with a roughly 48.8% interest, NextEra Energy, Consolidated Edison, AltaGas and RGC Resources . Equitrans will operate the pipeline. (Reporting by Scott DiSavino; editing by Jason Neely)