Rover Frustrated by Ferc Stop Work Order
Rover Pipeline, a unit of Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), on January 28 expressed its “frustration” with a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Ferc) order issued January 24 halting work on the project's Mainline B crossing of the Tuscarawas River in Ohio.
Rover Pipeline is a 713-mile long, dual 42-inch interstate gas pipeline, the largest currently under construction and the first to be built in Ohio since the Natural Gas Act was enacted n 1938. Mainline A is complete, while Mainline B is 94% complete.
In a 12-page letter to Terry Turpin, director of Ferc’s Office of Energy Projects (OEP), Chris Sonneborn, ETP’s senior vice president, engineering, said Rover Pipeline is “frustrated by the inaccurate central premise” of the letter ordering a halt to horizontal directional drilling (HDD) operations at the Mainline B crossing on the grounds that drilling fluid had been lost, even though no fluids had been returned to the surface and no environmental impacts had been documented.
“Both the commission and Rover fully expected the loss of drilling fluids during the HDD on Rover,” Sonneborn wrote. “Indeed, the Natural Gas Act Section 7 Certificate the Commission granted Rover expressly approved the use of HDD at the Tuscarawas River crossing.”
And, he added, both Rover’s expert HDD consultant and Ferc’s independent HDD expert approved revised plans that Ferc relied on to lift a previous stop-work order issued after an April 2017 release of 2mn gallons of drilling fluid at the Mainline A crossing. Those plans, Sonneborn noted, “explicitly contemplate ‘complete or significantly diminished circulation loss that cannot be restored’ during the HDD, with specific identified prescriptive and performance-based responses when a loss of drilling fluids occur.”
But nowhere in those responses is there any suggestion that Rover should halt the drill and stop construction, he wrote.
“Instead, as approved by the commission, the plans affirm that as currently designed, the Tuscarawas River Mainline B HDD has a lower risk of an inadvertent release occurring within the wetland adjacent to the Tuscarawas River, given that the revised HDD path for Mainline B is approximately 100 feet deeper than Mainline A and crosses consolidated rock for a longer length of the HDD,” Sonneborn wrote. “Thus, the approved plans contemplate this exact scenario and support the continuation of the drill as planned.”
Sonneborn also took exception to the OEP's characterization that Rover had taken steps to resolve the loss of the drilling fluid but that none of those efforts had been successful.
“That is a very surprising statement from OEP since, as you know, completely eliminating loss of circulation was never contemplated, nor was it a condition of the approval from Ferc to commence with the Mainline B HDDs,” Sonneborn wrote. “If this was and is the expectation here or on any pipeline, then no crossing methodology that involves a fluid carrier can proceed, which would include the direct pipe methodology suggested by OEP.”
Rover has been beset by a number of problems, and has attracted the attention of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which has attempted on numerous occasions to have Ferc stop the project, Sonneborn pointed out. It's latest was complaint was over the loss of 146,000 gallons of drilling fluid on January 10.
“Throughout this process, Ohio EPA has actively sought to stop Rover’s progress by spreading false information and innuendo and seeking to compel OEP staff to halt construction,” he wrote, noting that recent efforts by the Ohio EPA to shut Rover down on environmental grounds came as the agency had “simultaneously permitted two direct crossings” of the Tuscarawas River by another pipeline and by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
“These are not the actions of an agency truly seeking to protect the environment,” Sonneborn wrote, urging that the Ohio EPA not be allowed to dictate how Ferc’s authority is used.
“Given its unique nature, and the geology it must pass through, [Rover] has had more than its fair share of challenges. But the company has met those challenges and has acted in good faith to be good environmental stewards. It is in this context that OEP staff and the commission should…allow this drill to continue under the current plan.”