MOSCOW (MRC) -- Kinder Morgan Energy Partners (KMP) has received a long-term transportation agreement from NOVA Chemicals to transport ethane and ethane-propane mixtures from the prolific Utica shale area through its previously reported Utica to Ontario Pipeline Access (UTOPIA) project, which is currently in a binding open season that began Sept. 5, 2014, and will close on Oct. 6, 2014, said Hydracarbonprocessing.
As part of the UTOPIA project, Kinder Morgan Cochin will develop, construct, own and operate a 240-mile, 12-inch diameter pipeline from Harrison County, Ohio, to Kinder Morgan’s Cochin Pipeline near Riga, Michigan, where the company would then move product eastward to Windsor, Ontario, Canada. UTOPIA would have an initial 50,000 bpd of capacity, which is expandable to more than 75,000 bpd. The approximately USD500 million pipeline project is expected to be in service by early 2018 with the receipt of timely permitting and regulatory approvals.
"We are pleased to partner with NOVA Chemicals to provide a long-term solution for moving ethane and ethane-propane mixtures out of the Utica shale," said Don Lindley, President of NGL, Products Pipelines for KMP.
"This pipeline project supports NOVA Chemicals’ growth strategy-providing our Corunna, Ontario, facility with diversity of supply by accessing feedstock from new and existing producers in the growing Utica shale basin, in addition to our current feedstock supply," said Grant Thomson, President of Olefins and Feedstocks for NOVA Chemicals.
As MRC wrote before, NOVA Chemicals announced that the first barrels of ethane supplied from natural gas associated with oil production from Bakken Shale are being utilized at its Joffre complex in Canada's Alberta province. The ethane was produced at Hess Corp.'s plant in Tioga, North Dakota, and transported across the border into Alberta via the Vantage Pipeline.
Nova Chemical is one of the largest world's petrochemical companies, a manufacturer of polyethylene, styrene polymers, monomers, and many other related products.
MRC