By William Opalka

Tennessee Gas Pipeline on Friday filed an application with FERC for a certificate of public convenience and necessity for the Northeast Energy Direct pipeline (CP16-21).

Tennessee Gas, a unit of Kinder Morgan, is seeking FERC approval in the fourth quarter of 2016, with construction starting in January 2017 and an in-service date of Nov. 1, 2018. The company estimates the project will cost $5.2 billion.

“Adding the NED project capacity to transport incremental natural gas supplies will ease natural gas capacity constraints and is expected to provide significant benefits to energy consumers in the region in the form of lower natural gas and electricity prices,” the application says.

The project consists of two components that will transport natural gas from the Marcellus shale gas region of Pennsylvania to New England.

The supply path component is a 174-mile segment from Bradford County in northern Pennsylvania to an existing compressor in Wright, N.Y. The segment can transport 1.23 million dekatherms per day, of which Tennessee Gas says it has long-term contracts for 552,262 dekatherms per day.

The market path component continues from Wright for 188 miles through New York and Massachusetts, turning slightly north into New Hampshire and then moving south to its end in Dracut, Mass. This route has a capacity of 1.3 million dekatherms per day, with contracts for 751,650 dekatherms per day.

The staff of the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission has released a report that said Northeast Energy Direct is its preferred project of several proposed natural gas pipelines to ease supply constraints. (See NH PUC Staff: Northeast Energy Direct Pipeline Would Lower Power Prices.)