TransCanada brings Mountaineer Xpress project into service

TransCanada has brought its $3.2bn Mountaineer XPress (MXP) project into service after receiving an approval for the full in-service from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

In addition to increasing the flow of gas on MXP, the approval also enables the company to start operating its $600m Gulf XPress (GXP) project.

The pipeline projects connect Appalachian natural gas supplies and growing markets in the US and abroad.

TransCanada president and CEO Russ Girling said: “Mountaineer XPress and Gulf XPress are extremely important to TransCanada as they provide much-needed takeaway capacity for our customers, while also growing our extensive footprint in the Appalachian Basin.

“Both projects will also deliver attractive long-term returns and stable cash flow for our shareholders.”

The MXP project includes 170 miles of 36in-diameter pipeline and three new compressor stations to deliver domestically produced natural gas.

TransCanada also carried out modifications to three existing compressor stations.

MXP is designed to carry 2.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day to the TCO Pool and Leach markets on the Columbia Gas Transmission System, which serves customers from the state of New York to the Gulf of Mexico.

Acquired by the company in 2016, the Columbia pipeline system has a network of 12,000 miles of pipelines and 37 storage fields in four states.

As part of the partial in-service of the GXP project, the firm put four new compressor stations into service in Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi.

These facilities are designed to provide a combined additional capacity of 530,000 million cubic feet of natural gas a day on the Columbia Gulf Transmission System.

The company expects to place the GXP project into full service in the coming weeks.