Completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline has been delayed until the second quarter, developer Equitrans said Tuesday, following a string of court delays and price hikes.
Equitrans Tuesday said construction of the natural gas pipeline has been delayed “as a result of unforeseen challenging construction conditions, combined with unexpected and substantially adverse winter weather conditions throughout much of January.”
Equitrans is now targeting a start date sometime in the second quarter of 2024, officials said, a delay of at least three months.
Equitrans also boosted projected costs for the pipeline, with costs now expected to fall somewhere between $7.57 billion and $7.63 billion, up from its earlier estimate of $7.2 billion.
“While our construction plans took into account the potential effects of winter weather, these conditions were far worse and longer in duration than anticipated, imposing a significant impact on productivity, which, in turn, impeded our ability to reduce construction headcount,” Equitrans CEO Diana Charletta said in the statement Tuesday.
The more than 300-mile natural gas pipeline that will eventually run from southern Virginia to West Virginia has been hit by years of delays and legal setbacks.
The delays have pushed back the pipeline’s planned start date by more than five years and nearly doubled the original $3.7 billion expected price tag for the project.
Last June, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) successfully included a provision expediting the pipeline’s approval into a debt ceiling bill signed by President Joe Biden.
That law directed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to authorize the completion of the pipeline, including ordering the approval of all remaining permits necessary to finish the pipeline and to prevent any litigation that challenged the pipeline.
The project has continued to generate fierce pushback from environmental groups and many Democrats, who have argued that it will degrade the environment and make climate change worse.
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Environmental groups have also challenged the provision as unconstitutional and a violation of congressional authority.
Once fully operational, the pipeline is expected to have a capacity of 2 billion cubic feet per day.
