"As this is firm capacity, it is reliable," Tramonte said in an email. "Even the capacity that is posted, in our view, has limitations to it."Įnable Midstream Partners Vice President of Commercial Transportation and Storage Steven Tramonte said MRT has posted available firm capacity of more than 145,000 Dth/d for summer 2021, and additional firm capacity could be available for the 2021-2022 winter season on the East Line. Louis region to replace" Spire STL, Carter said. "There's not 350,000 of posted capacity to come into the St. Carter said his utility has hesitated to rely on the East Line, indicating that the pipe has at times faced challenges getting gas from upstream pipes. While some of MRT's available capacity could be used to supply Spire Missouri during a cold snap, Carter said that much of that is on MRT's East Line, one of the pipes in the MRT system. MRT was among several parties that opposed the STL project during its FERC application, arguing it would inflict competitive harm on regional pipelines. The utility relinquished that capacity as part of a strategy to diversify its supply sources, shifting away from reliance on MRT and turning to capacity from Spire STL to provide access to low-cost Appalachian shale gas through an interconnection with the Rockies Express Pipeline LLC system, or REX. The utility recently retired a propane system capable of meeting about 190,000 Dth/d of demand and has also given up nearly 180,000 Dth/d of capacity previously contracted on Enable Mississippi River Transmission LLC, or MRT, according to data compiled by Market Intelligence. Spire Missouri sees no reliable alternative to the capacity of Spire STL system, Carter said. His comments offered insight into a case that Spire could make to FERC, should the regulator conduct a new review of Spire STL. It could take up to 100 days to restore service disruptions of that scale, Carter said. If the region suffered an especially cruel winter - in which the company draws down storage during an early cold snap, and then experiences another deep freeze later in the season - up to 400,000 Missouri customers could lose service without Spire Missouri's 350,000 Dth/day of contracted capacity on Spire STL, according to the company. Natural gas pipeline opponents have already seized on the Spire STL ruling to bolster arguments for more analysis in other pipeline cases.įERC and Spire, however, have maintained that affiliate contracts should be treated the same as unaffiliated contracts.Īffiliate or no, Carter said, Spire Missouri needs supply. While it is not uncommon for pipelines to u se contracts with affiliates to pass the public need test or for project opponents to challenge that need, limited demand growth and Spire STL's reliance on a single contract stands out, especially in a climate-conscious era of heightened scrutiny around pipeline development. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit panel vacated the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's 2018 certificate authorizing the pipeline project, the panel found that FERC did not adequately consider arguments that Spire STL's sole precedent agreement to deliver gas to affiliate Spire Missouri was not enough to establish public need. "I'm hoping that as we move through the process, we can put the facts on the table that support the benefits of the pipeline, the criticality of the pipeline." I don't sit on extra capacity just in case some court two years later shuts down the operation of a pipeline," Carter said told S&P Global news reporters. The court's decision could lead to a shutdown of the pipeline, which went into service in November 2019.īut Spire Missouri President Scott Carter, also Spire's COO of distribution operations, said that the pipe had played a crucial role in maintaining service in eastern Missouri during February's extreme cold snap, and that shutting it down could leave Spire Missouri unable to meet peak winter demand. The court sided with the Environmental Defense Fund, finding the group had "identified plausible evidence of self-dealing" in Spire STL's reliance on affiliate contracts to show the pipe was necessary. A recent court decision found that federal regulators had not sufficiently scrutinized whether Spire STL demonstrated a valid market need for the project. Louis area, including to its affiliate gas utility, Spire Missouri Inc. Spire STL delivers Rocky Mountain and Appalachian natural gas to the St. If the region experiences a deep chill without access to the Spire STL Pipeline, Spire utility executives warn, hundreds of thousands of customers could lose service. 's Missouri gas utility is already looking to the next major cold snap. With this past winter's severe weather still top of mind, Spire Inc. Source: Feifei Cui-Paoluzzo//Moment via Getty Images Spire STL pipeline delivers Rocky Mountain and Appalachian natural gas to the St.