Oct 12 (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has given Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC permission to resume construction on parts of its $5.4-$5.7 billion pipeline from West Virginia to Virginia.
Mountain Valley is one of several U.S. oil and gas pipelines delayed by regulatory and legal fights with environmental and local groups that found problems with federal permits issued by the Trump administration. It wants to restart work so it can complete as much as possible before winter. imposed the suspension on Mountain Valley a year ago due to litigation over the project's Biological Opinion from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), which allows construction in areas inhabited by endangered and threatened species.
The FWS issued a new Biological Opinion in early September.
U.S. pipeline company Equitrans Midstream Corp ETRN.N , one of the partners in Mountain Valley, has said it expects the pipeline to enter service in early 2021. was not immediately available for comment on the FERC ruling, which was released late on Friday.
Analysts at Height Capital Markets said they expect the project to enter service in mid 2021, but noted the timing could slip to the third quarter of 2021 if ongoing legal challenges prevent it from crossing some stream.
In February 2018, when Equitrans started construction of the 303-mile (488-km) pipeline designed to deliver 2 billion cubic feet per day of gas from the Marcellus-Utica shale field, it estimated Mountain Valley would cost about $3.5 billion and be completed by the end of 2018. has said it expects to receive new approvals soon from FERC and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that will enable it to finish building the last 8% of the project.
Mountain Valley is owned by units of Equitrans, NextEra Energy Inc (NYSE:NEE) NEE.N , Consolidated Edison Inc (NYSE:ED) ED.N , AltaGas Ltd ALA.TO and RGC Resources Inc RGCO.O .
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