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Columbia plans yet another gas pipeline in W.Va.

Intelligencer/Wheeling News-Register photo by Casey Junkins Marcellus and Utica shale natural gas to market is taking shape, as Columbia Pipeline Group’s  Mountaineer XPress, leading from Marshall County to Wayne County, W.Va., took another step forward this week.
Intelligencer/Wheeling News-Register photo by Casey Junkins
Marcellus and Utica shale natural gas to market is taking shape, as Columbia Pipeline Group’s Mountaineer XPress, leading from Marshall County to Wayne County, W.Va., took another step forward this week.

WHEELING, W.Va. — Columbia Pipeline Group plans to ship 2.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day southward from Marshall County via its $2 billion Mountaineer XPress pipeline project.

The company formally notified the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that it will file the application for the Mountaineer project in April. As Columbia continues working on the $1.75 billion Leach XPress project, which would send gas from Marshall County via a southwestern route across Ohio to a compressor station in Ceredo, W.Va., the firm is now organizing this additional pipeline.

Officials expect the Mountaineer XPress to transport 2.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from Marcellus and Utica shale gathering areas in West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania southward to a Columbia station in Wayne County, W.Va.

Officials believe this will provide producers in the Marcellus and Utica shale areas new transportation options to move the glut of natural gas out of the capacity-constrained supply basin and into the interstate market.

Pending FERC authorization, Columbia expects to begin construction in fall of 2017 with hopes of getting the pipeline in service before the end of 2018.

“Columbia has been a part of many of these communities for decades, and in some states like West Virginia for over a century,” Glen Kettering, Columbia Pipeline Group president, said. “These projects will enhance Columbia Pipeline Group’s already substantial footprint to meet the needs of the market in this important region-transporting growing supplies of clean-burning natural gas to high-value markets.”

The project includes upgrades to three existing Columbia compressor stations in Kanawha, Wayne and Marshall counties, as well as the construction of three new stations in Doddridge, Jackson and Calhoun counties. New pipeline construction is needed in Marshall, Wetzel, Tyler, Cabell, Calhoun, Doddridge, Jackson, Mason, Putnam, Ritchie, Roane and Wirt counties.

Columbia officials said the firm is reaching out to landowners and communities that will see the pipelines.

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