(Pittsburgh, PA) — After a decade of construction and legal wrangling, the Mountain Valley Pipeline is ready to start pumping.
The pipeline’s lead developer filed their first quarter report earlier this week Equitrans announced they plan to have it operational by the end of May.
They also placed the final price tag of the 303-mile long pipeline at $7.85 billion. The original estimate a decade ago was closer to three-and-a-half billion dollars.
“Project costs were affected by challenging physical construction conditions, certain equipment and other issues during now-completed boring operations, unexpected challenges with certain pipeline cleaning procedures, and inclement weather,” Equitrans shared in their press release.
Equitrans says less than a mile of the natural gas pipeline linking West Virginia with the TransCo Compressor Station in Pittsylvania County is yet to be installed. Most of it has been tested, cleaned and readied for operation.
“Remaining forward construction includes the tying in of a completed bore, the installation of pipe on a steep slope, and the tying together of the final pipeline segments after completing testing and commissioning activities,” Equitrans announced in their quarterly report.
They still have to get the go-ahead from federal regulators before they can flip the “on” switch.
It was last summer when Congress passed a law fast-tracking federal permits for the pipeline while shielding it from most legal challenges. Twice, the work was stalled after granted federal permits were thrown out by federal judges in Richmond.
A small group of southwest Virginia landowners are asking the Supreme Court to rescind the eminent domain granted to pipeline builders