Williams is in the process of conducting open houses for a series of compressor station projects part of it’s recently announced Leidy South Project. The project will expand capacity along the Transco Pipeline system, including the newly minted Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline portion of Transco, adding another 582 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of capacity to the Transco in northeast PA.

In December MDN brought you the news that Williams is planning their new Leidy expansion project (see Williams Unveils “Leidy South Project” to Expand Transco in PA). The confusing thing is that Dominion Energy also had a project (built in 2017) by the same identical name, Leidy South (see FERC Grants Permission to Begin Leidy South Construction in PA/VA). Don’t confuse Williams’ Leidy South, a brand new project, with Dominion’s Leidy South.

We told you in our December article that the upgrades proposed by Williams for their Leidy South project include “replacing smaller pipeline with larger pipeline in some areas, adding “looping” in other areas, and upgrading four compressor stations.” That wasn’t 100% accurate. Williams is upgrading two compressor stations, and building two brand new compressor stations.

Here’s a list of the work to be done for Leidy South re compressor stations:

Existing Locations

• Compressor Station 605 – Uprate the two existing electric motor driven compressors from 15,000 horsepower (“hp”) to 21,000 hp each at Transco’s existing Compressor Station 605 in Wyoming County, PA
• Compressor Station 610 – Add one turbine driven compressor unit and cooling at Transco’s existing Compressor Station 610 in Columbia County, PA

New Locations

• Compressor Station 607 – Install two turbine driven compressor units and cooling in Luzerne County, PA
• Compressor Station 620 – Install one turbine driven compressor unit in Schuylkill County, PA

One of the new compressor stations will be built in Schuylkill County, the other new compressor will be built in neighboring Luzerne County (Wilkes-Barre area). Williams held an open house for the Luzerne compressor station yesterday:

A natural gas compressor station could be coming to the Back Mountain.

The Williams Companies, which owns the recently opened Atlantic Sunrise pipeline, wants to build a compressor station that would increase the capacity of the that pipeline.

Compressor stations compress gas moving through a pipeline, helping it flow more efficiently.

The company has an agreement with a property owner to build on a 90-acre parcel off Jackson Hill Road in Fairmount Twp. About 20 acres of that parcel would be fenced in, and the station would be inside the fence. A second option for a location is adjacent, straddling the border of Fairmount and Ross townships.

Williams held an informational meeting Wednesday at the Irem Country Club in Dallas Twp. The company invited property owners within a half-mile radius of the proposed site.

The meeting was part of the “pre-filing” stage of the project. Williams is gathering information ahead of an application it plans to file this summer. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission oversees the approval process and could issue a decision about a year after that application is submitted, said Williams spokesman Christopher Stockton.

The company’s goal is to finish the project before the 2021-22 winter heating season.

The “Leidy South” project would also add a new compressor facility in Schuylkill County, upgrade existing compressor stations in Wyoming and Columbia counties and add some pipe in Lycoming and Clinton counties.

The goal is improved capacity that could move about 582 million additional cubic feet of natural gas per day from northern and western Pennsylvania to markets on the Atlantic seaboard. That’s enough to meet the daily needs of about 2.5 million homes, according to Williams.

When the Atlantic Sunrise project went online, it allowed Williams to move about 1.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. The Leidy South project would increase that capacity by about a third.

That pipeline project, which went into full service in October 2018, connected gas-producing areas in Pennsylvania to a 10,200-mile network of pipeline called the Transcontinental Pipeline, or Transco, the largest natural gas pipeline by volume in the country.

Fairmount Twp. resident Carl Harrison lives next to the parcel that could be home to the compressor station.

Even before the latest pipeline was installed, he lived near a pipeline in the area for decades. In fact, he was part of a survey team that helped install it.

He learned about the planned compressor station Wednesday. He plans to attend any future meetings that might be scheduled.

“I’ll just follow to see what’s going on,” he said.*

*Wilkes-Barre (PA) Citizens’ Voice (Feb 21, 2019) – Compressor station may be coming to Fairmount Twp.

An updated map of the project showing locations for each compressor station part of the Transco system in NEPA:

Leidy-South-Oct-2018-map