Texas Eastern To Develop Ohio Pipeline Energy Network Project

Spectra Energy Corp.’s Texas Eastern Transmission, American Electric Power and Chesapeake Energy Marketing, Inc. plans to develop the Ohio Pipeline Energy Network (OPEN) project, a proposed expansion of the Texas Eastern pipeline system that will connect Ohio’s Utica and Marcellus shale gas supplies with the fast-growing markets attached to the Texas Eastern system, in particular natural gas-fired power generation.
  The OPEN project brings together the largest producer and leaseholder in the Utica shale play, the largest power generator in the region and the premier pipeline company with over 60 years of safe and reliable operational history in the state of Ohio. The project will involve approximately 70 miles of new pipeline and create an additional 1 Bcf/d of transportation capacity to serve local distribution companies, industrial users and gas-fired power generators in the Ohio market, as well as markets along the Texas Eastern system.
  As part of the project, American Electric Power continues to invest in Ohio and will pursue transportation capacity that would enable the company to connect Ohio gas supplies with its gas-fired power plants in the Midwest. Chesapeake, which holds 1.5 million net acres in the Utica play, is pursuing capacity to access the substantial Texas Eastern markets spanning from the Gulf of Mexico to the Northeast U.S.
  A binding open season for the OPEN project is planned for the first quarter 2012 with the projected in-service slated for November 2014.