Vector pipeline will shut the eastern portion of its system in May for upgrades to ship gas from the new Rover pipeline to midcontinent markets and the Dawn storage hub in Ontario, Canada.
An estimated 18 day outage impacting firm services is required to perform work necessary to interconnect the Rover Pipeline, modify the Milford Junction interconnection with DTE Gas and proposed Nexus pipeline, and enhance the Union Gas Dawn interconnection, the pipeline said last week.
Vector has commitments of about 1.4 Bcf/d (40mn cf/d) of gas from Rover and Nexus pipeline and that capacity to Dawn is fully subscribed starting late 2017, according to the pipeline
Energy Transfer Partners earlier in February received regulatory permits to build the 3.25 Bcf/d Rover pipeline that would transport Marcellus and Utica shale gas in Ohio, West Virginia, Michigan, and into the Dawn Hub.
About 32pc of Rover's capacity will be delivered to markets and storage fields in Michigan through Vector. Vector will ship volumes that are not delivered to Michigan to the Dawn hub, according to Rover.
The remaining 68pc capacity from Rover will be delivered to existing pipelines in Ohio and West Virginia for distribution across the US.
Rover is scheduled to begin partial service by July 2017 and be fully operational in November 2017.
Spectra Energy and DTE Energy's 1.5 Bcf/d Nexus pipeline is awaiting regulatory approval but is still has a target in-service date of end-2017.
The Vector outage will occur in two phases.
During the phase 1 outage on 1-8 May Vector pipeline will be able to ship gas from the Joliet receipt point in north east Illinois to as far as the Jackson meter station in south central Michigan.
Vector interconnects east of the Jackson station with Consumers Energy, DTE Gas, Eastern Power, Enbridge Gas and Union Gas will be shut during Phase 1.
In addition, interconnects with Washington 10 storage, Bluewater storage, Greenfield Energy Center and some addition interconnects with Consumers and DTE will be highly limited, the pipeline said.
During phase 2 on 9-18 May capacity at the Dawn interconnect will remain very limited.
Vector with support from other interconnecting parties will attempt to confirm some restricted nominations during phase 2, the pipeline said.
