Spectra Energy Corp's (NYSE: SE) Texas Eastern Transmission, LP named Chevron U.S.A. Inc. and EQT Energy, LLC, a gas marketing subsidiary of EQT Corp., as anchor shippers for its recently announced Texas Eastern Appalachia to Market (TEAM) 2014 Expansion Project, an expansion of the company's existing Texas Eastern system that will deliver additional emerging Appalachian shale natural gas supplies to diverse markets in the Northeast, Midwest and Southern U.S.
Under the TEAM 2014 project, Chevron and EQT will ship a combined quantity of 600 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d). The estimated capital investment for the project is approximately $500 million, with a targeted in-service date of fourth quarter 2014. A term of the TEAM 2014 project is that a shipper is required to commit to a minimum volume of 300 MMcf/d to qualify as an anchor shipper.
TEAM 2014 is part of a major ongoing expansion strategy being undertaken by Spectra Energy to connect growing supply basins to premium markets in the Northeast, Midwest and Southeast U.S. It follows the successful TEAM 2012 project currently under construction, a capacity expansion of 200 MMcf/d for two shippers, Range Resources and Chesapeake Utilities, to be placed into service this fall.
"The TEAM expansion program offers the opportunity for moving emerging natural gas supplies from the growing Marcellus and Utica shale plays in the Appalachian supply basin to premium markets in the Northeast, Midwest and Southeast U.S. These new regional supplies will significantly add to the reliability, security, diversity and optionality of supply for these high-demand markets, especially when combined with traditional supply sources," said Bill Yardley, group vice president, Spectra Energy Transmission, Northeast.
Due to its strategic positioning in the Marcellus and Utica shale plays in Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, as well as its historical deliverability into the major markets of the Northeast U.S., Texas Eastern is situated to capture these supplies and connect them to growing markets to meet consumer demand. In addition to the slate of TEAM projects, Spectra Energy has announced other supply-driven initiatives that are under development, including the Ohio Pipeline Expansion Network (OPEN) and the Northeast Expansion Transmission Project (NEXT). Each of these projects is uniquely designed to provide producers with access to distinct, diverse and growing markets.
The TEAM 2014 and OPEN Projects also support Spectra Energy's other expansion initiatives that will serve markets in the Southeast U.S. The company is actively pursuing market development attracted to the supply diversity that Texas Eastern offers, as demonstrated by its recent announcement of the Renaissance Gas Transmission (Renaissance) project, a new pipeline system that will link growing natural gas supplies from the Marcellus and Utica shale regions to high-demand power generation and distribution markets in Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee. The Renaissance pipeline will begin at an interconnect with Texas Eastern's 30-inch system in its Market Zone 1, which will enable the TEAM 2014 and OPEN shippers to make deliveries into that system.
"The strength of these various expansion efforts comes down largely to what Texas Eastern offers to both ends of the supply/demand equation. Texas Eastern provides access to all the supply basins — whether it's the Gulf Region, Rockies gas, LNG and shale — so there's tremendous supply optionality, and then our customers have access to premium markets, including fast-growing power generation markets in the Midwest, mid-Atlantic and Southeast, and the chemical industry and potential LNG exports of the Gulf Coast," said Yardley.
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