Natural Gas Pipeline Planned For Eastern Ohio

Plans are shaping up for a major pipeline to move natural gas liquids from eastern Ohio to the Gulf Coast. Company Kinder Morgan is giving new details about its plan for what it calls the Utica Marcellus Texas Pipeline Project. The pipeline will carry natural gas liquids like ethane, propane and butane from Tuscarawas County to processing facilities in Texas, according to a fact sheet on Kinder Morgan’s website. The pipeline will aid producers in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia in getting their products to market. "This is going to be like a super highway," says Mike Chadsey, a spokesman for the Ohio Oil and Gas Association. He says the new pipeline will move more products more efficiently than the existing system. And, he says, it shows continuing investment in the region’s transport and processing facilities – what the industry calls “midstreamâ€? infrastructure. "Kinder Morgan is really a giant in that industry. They’ve got large diameter pipe all across the country. So when you have somebody of that caliber operating in Ohio, that’s a good sign," Chadsey says. Kinder Morgan says the pipeline should be operating by mid-2017. Its initial capacity will be 150,000 barrels per day, but that could be expanded.