Energy Transfer has commissioned the Mariner East 2 pipeline, a 563km long underground natural gas liquids (NGLs) pipeline laid across the US states of Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
Image: Energy Transfer has placed the Mariner East 2 pipeline into service. Photo: courtesy of Alexander Redmon/Freeimages.com.
The Mariner East 2 pipeline is now available for interstate and intrastate service, said Energy Transfer. It will supply domestically produced ethane, butane east and propane procured from processing plants across Ohio and West Virginia into Pennsylvania.
The pipeline supplies the NGLs to the company’s Marcus Hook Industrial Complex in Delaware County, Pennsylvania where the commodities are stored prior to their distribution to local, domestic and waterborne markets.
The pipeline project is phase two of Energy Transfer’s Mariner East pipeline infrastructure project, which is spread over Pennsylvania, Delaware, Ohio and West Virginia. Construction of the Mariner East pipeline system has been carried out by Sunoco Pipeline, a subsidiary of Energy Transfer.
The Mariner East pipeline will transport the necessary NGL takeaway capacity for the Marcellus and Utica Shale producers in the Eastern Ohio, West Virginia and Western Pennsylvania regions.
According to Energy Transfer, the pipeline system will offer operational flexibility and improved security of NGL supply from producing areas to major markets in the region and beyond.
Energy Transfer, in a statement, said: “According to a 2015 economic impact study by EConsult Solutions, the total impact from the construction of the Mariner East pipelines is estimated to be more than $9.1 billion in Pennsylvania alone.
“When complete, the projects will have provided more than 9,500 construction jobs per year for six years, with associated earnings totaling more than $2.7 billion.”
The pipeline infrastructure project is made up of the Mariner East 1, Mariner East 2 and Mariner East 2X pipelines.
Operating since 2014, the Mariner East 1 pipeline transports liquid propane and ethane from Western Pennsylvania to the Marcus Hook Industrial Complex and also to Claymont in Delaware.
The third pipeline – Mariner East 2X which is anticipated to commence operations by the end of this year, will be built in a parallel route to the Mariner East 2 pipeline.