FERC Approves Compressor Service on Rover Pipeline

Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) said October 9 it has received US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Ferc) approval to begin operating three compressor units on its Rover pipeline project in Ohio that will allow the movement of 1bn ft³/day of natural gas from Cadiz, Ohio to Defiance, Ohio on Phase 1A of the pipeline.

Phase 1A has been operating since the end of August, while Phase 1B, from Seneca, Ohio to Cadiz, Ohio, is expected to be completed by the end of the year. The remainder of the 3.25bn ft³/day pipeline is expected to be completed by March of next year, nearly five months later than the initial completion target of November this year. It will deliver natural gas from the Marcellus and Utica shale fields to markets in the US and Canada through its connection to the Dawn trading hub in southern Ontario.

Rover has been plagued by problems almost since construction began, notably in the wake of the inadvertent release of 2mn gallons (7,600 m³) of drilling mud in April at one of the horizontal directional drilling (HDD) river crossings in Ohio. The mud was found to contain “petroleum hydrocarbon constituents consistent with diesel fuel”, despite an ETP undertaking in its original Ferc application that HDD drilling mud would contain only water and bentonite clay.

The spill prompted Ferc to issue a stop work order in May covering all the project’s HDD river crossings. The order was lifted on September 18 for nine sites, including a key HDD crossing at Captina Creek in Ohio that will allow for the completion of Phase 1B by the end of this year.

Since Rover construction began in March 2017, the $4.3bn project has accrued a record 104 violations, according to an August analysis by Bloomberg.

Dale Lunan