Construction of the Rover Pipeline is progressing, and this increase in activity has already resulted in the creation of thousands of employment opportunities for hardworking men and women. As Natural Gas Intelligence noted, a recent FERC filing by Rover indicates that the project successfully completed tree felling and has moved into subsequent portions of construction:
Energy Transfer subsidiary Rover Pipeline LLC has completed 100% of the tree felling for its 3.25 Bcf/d Appalachian takeaway mega project, but a construction update submitted to FERC this week suggests there’s plenty left to do as crews race toward a target July partial in-service date.
In an update filed in the project docket at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission [CP15-93], Rover said it spent the week ending April 7 installing signage along the right-of-way and that it has begun full construction.
For its mainline segment, Rover reported that it had completed 51% of the clearing and 39% of the grading work. On the supply segment, 29% of the clearing and 13% of the grading had been completed as of April 7.
A progress table showed that crews also began trenching and laying and welding pipe during the week.
Further, this activity has resulted in a dramatic uptick in hiring by the project. As the filing relates, Rover has already trained more than 7,000 employees for the project:
As for staffing, Rover said it is up to 7,570 trained personnel as of April 7.
“They continue to have scheduled trainings, which means they are continuing to hire,” natural gas analytics firm Genscape said in a note to clients this week. “Tree felling is (and has been) 100% complete, but we see clearing pass 50% on the mainline section — the supply section is lagging at only 29% complete, but we don’t expect for all the supply laterals to need to be complete for Rover Phase 1 (just Clarington).
Progress on the Rover Pipeline is good news not only for construction workers, but for regional natural gas producers as well, reducing the long-standing bottleneck of regional resources. Natural Gas Intelligence underscored increased activity on the part of production companies in the region to meet the expected capacity of Rover:
Utica Shale producers appear to be ramping up in anticipation of the new takeaway Rover will bring to the Appalachian Basin.
In a recent blog post, BTU Analytics looked at recent activity from Antero Resources Corp., Ascent Resources LLC, Eclipse Resources Corp., Gulfport Energy Corp. and Rice Energy Inc. — five Appalachian producers that account for 2.3 Bcf/d of commitments on Rover.
“With the backlog of [drilled uncompleted wells] decreasing, producers will need to significantly increase drilling levels if they are to fill this new capacity,” BTU wrote. “…Drilling by these five producers has more than doubled since November, with Ascent and Gulfport accounting for the bulk of this activity, while Rice, Antero and Eclipse have had smaller increases.”
CEPI is encouraged by this progress on the Rover Pipeline. With the project only a few weeks into construction, the many economic benefits are already being realized in communities along the Rover route. CEPI looks forward to continuing news on the many positive impacts of the Rover Pipeline.