Proposed New England gas pipeline is shelved

Kinder Morgan has pulled the plug on a pipeline that would ship natural gas through parts of Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Connecticut, Jon Chesto reports for The Boston Globe. "Kinder Morgan said on Wednesday that its Northeast Energy Direct project didn’t receive the commitments from big customers that it needed to proceed with the $3.3 billion plan, which would involve building a 188-mile pipeline from a point west of Albany, N.Y., to Dracut, Mass." (Globe map)

"In a statement, Kinder Morgan suggested it did not have enough business to justify moving ahead with the project, saying 'there are currently neither sufficient volumes, nor a reasonable expectation of securing them, to proceed with the project as it is currently configured,'" Chesto writes. "One of the main risks the company cited: It’s far from certain that New England states will succeed in establishing rules that would allow electricity customers to be charged for gas pipelines."

Kinder Morgan's "withdrawal represents a huge victory for its array of opponents, ranging from grass-roots organizations to established environmental groups to powerful politicians," Chesto writes. "They also included residents of the many towns that would be affected by pipeline construction and activists who worried it could make New England overly dependent on natural gas. And the decision could provide a big boost to the other large pipeline construction project proposed for New England, Spectra Energy Partners’ Access Northeast, which has the financial backing of utilities Eversource Energy and National Grid." (Read more)