This article discusses Kinder Morgan Cancels Fracked Liquids Pipeline Plan, and Pursues Another. The company has dropped the idea of pushing hazardous gas liquids through an old pipeline that ran the other way. But it still wants to ship fracked natural gas.
After years of battling local opposition and volatile economics, pipeline giant Kinder Morgan has abandoned a plan to send natural gas liquids from Ohio across six states to Texas via a repurposed 75-year-old pipeline.
Kinder Morgan’s line, the Utica Marcellus Texas Pipeline, has been carrying natural gas the other way, from the Gulf Coast to gas-rich Ohio, like carrying coal to Newcastle. After the fracking boom of the past decade the company wanted to reverse the 964-mile long line’s direction, extend it, and change its cargo from gas to liquid byproducts.
The drilling frenzy has created a glut of these liquids that are used in petrochemical production. Kinder Morgan was hoping to give its old pipeline a new economic lifeline by carrying them to markets in the Gulf region.
The proposal was approved by federal regulators, but challenged in court after stirring intense opposition in Kentucky, where the pipeline passes.