Plug pulled on PennEast natural gas pipeline: media
The developer behind a proposed natural gas pipeline from Pennsylvania to New Jersey pulled the plug due to the lack of necessary permits, the Reuters news service reported September 27.
PennEast Pipeline secured federal approval for construction of the natural gas pipeline in 2018, but lacked other state-level sanctions such as a water quality certification from New Jersey.
|
Advertisement: The National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited (NGC) NGC’s HSSE strategy is reflective and supportive of the organisational vision to become a leader in the global energy business. |
"The PennEast partners, following extensive evaluation and discussion, recently determined further development of the project no longer is supported," the company said in a statement to Reuters.
As such, it had “ceased all further development of the project."
Its decision followed a favourable ruling related to eminent domain from the US Supreme Court in June.
New Jersey had balked at the prospect of land seizure under eminent domain and a lower court ruled in its favor, but appeals set the dispute up for a showdown in the nation’s highest court.
Writing the opinion for the majority, chief justice John Roberts argued that eminent domain, the power to seize property, has been a fundamental tool for building a variety of infrastructure projects.
“We are asked to decide whether the federal government can constitutionally confer on pipeline companies the authority to condemn necessary rights-of-way in which a state has an interest,” he wrote. “We hold that it can.
Phase I of the project outlined a network through Pennsylvania with a scheduled start date in November. Phase II would have extended through New Jersey, with an in-service date of 2023.
The 120-mile pipeline was slated to deliver gas from the Marcellus shale basin, part of the broader Appalachia shale that covers parts of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York and Ohio.