A portion of the recently completed Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC (MVP) was shut for maintenance Tuesday, causing capacity cuts and driving Southeast regional natural gas prices higher.
Weeklong pigging operations on MVP’s H-600 pipeline between the Stallworth compressor station (CS) and the Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co. LLC (Transco) system via the Cherrystone interconnect is slated to continue through Monday.
When maintenance began, operational capacity at the Great Hammerhead and ML_MVP receipt points was to be trimmed by 303,000 MMBtu/d and 180,000 MMBtu/d, respectively, said MVP. The operational capacity of the Columbia Gas Transmission Greene, Roanoke Gas Lafayette and Roanoke Gas Summit View delivery points was to be zero.
The 303-mile conduit traverses the Appalachian Basin in northwestern West Virginia to southern Virginia, moving natural gas to the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and southeastern United States.
The pigging comes only two months after MVP commercial service ramped up in June. Upon startup, MVP was shipping just a fraction of its total 2 Bcf/d capacity. Pigging typically is done to perform various cleaning, clearing, dimensioning, maintenance, inspection, process and pipeline testing operations on new and existing pipelines.
According to a notice on the MVP electronic bulletin board, receipts could see up to a 724 MMcf/d day/day cut. Restrictions were expected to relax on Thursday, with operational capacity increasing to 370,000 MMBtu/d at Great Hammerhead and 220,000 MMBtu/d at ML_MVP.
“Because the three delivery points have not posted nonzero nominations in the last 30 days, the cut in receipts will mainly impact deliveries to Transco Cherrystone,” MVP said in the notice.
MVP’s scheduled work coincides with the aftermath of the former Hurricane Debby. By midweek, the storm was expected to dump extreme amounts of rain on parts of Georgia and South Carolina, according to AccuWeather forecasts. This should limit cooling demand.
“We’re likely to see a slight price increase at Transco Zone 5 due to the pipeline constraint during the MVP maintenance event,” said NGI’s Josiah Clinedinst, markets analyst.
NGI’s Transco Zone 5 spot natural gas price average $2.060/MMBtu on Monday. The price jumped 12.5 cents to $2.185 on Tuesday, likely in part because of the maintenance.
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Clinedinst noted that “gas coming through the Stallworth (Segment 3) throughput meter is almost the same amount of gas received at the end of the MVP connection at the Cherrystone M3670 interconnect with Transco pipeline every day.” The average gas received at Cherrystone since mid-June has had a daily average of 0.82 Bcf/d, and a max flow of 1.18 Bcf that was posted in mid-July.
At the start of maintenance Tuesday, the Cherrystone interconnect posted a receipt of 0.60 Bcf, versus 0.42 Bcf from the previous week’s average flow of 1.03 Bcf/d, the analyst said.
Clinedinst added that the Columbia Gas Greene interconnect had not received any flows since late May. The Roanoke Gas Lafayette receipt point was averaging only 362 Mcf/d since it began receiving gas from MVP. At the same time, the Roanoke Gas Summit View receipt point, despite being open, had not received any gas from MVP since mid-June.
Wood Mackenzie analysts said MVP’s startup was expected to begin easing summer pricing pressure on northern portions of the Transco Zone 5 market. Sustained price risks, however, were still expected in the Southeast markets.
