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Bluegrass Pipeline plans open house in Columbiana

FAIRFIELD TOWNSHIP – Bluegrass Pipeline will hold an open house at the Das Dutch Village Inn on Wednesday from 5 to 7 p.m.

The Dutch Haus is located at 150 state Route 14 in Columbiana.

The company is proposing a pipeline to transport natural gas liquids (NGLs) such as propane, butane, ethane and natural gasoline from western Pennsylvania and through 15 Ohio counties, including Mahoning, Columbiana and Carroll in northeast Ohio.

Last March, Williams and Boardwalk Pipeline LLC agreed to develop a pipeline carrying natural gas liquids from the Northeast shale plays in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia to Texas.

The pipeline was named Bluegrass and it is initially expected transport 200,000 barrels a day and upwards of 400,000 barrels a day after 2015.

The products are used in home heating and cooking, motor fuels, plastics production and industrial energy.

More than half of the proposed 1,100 mile route will consist of existing lines that will be converted to become part of the Bluegrass system.

The open house is one of a series the company is hosting next week in Ohio and Pennsylvania aimed at sharing information with communities in the pipeline corridor.

Dan Mitchell, project director of Bluegrass Pipeline, said, “Open dialogue with the residents of local communities is key to making this project a success.

“We want to hear from interested individuals along the pipeline corridor so we can address questions or concerns in person.”

Representatives from the Bluegrass Pipeline project team will be available to meet with residents and community members along the proposed route and answer questions and provide information.

There will also be an open house in Carrollton on Tuesday.

In May, Bluegrass Pipeline asked Fairfield Township trustees for approval to perform an environmental study in the township.

“We are in the preliminary stages of developing the pipeline route and securing permission to survey … which is part of determining that route,” Sara Delgado, senior communications specialist for Williams said at the time.

Bluegrass Pipeline began its environmental study, which asked for permission to have personnel “out walking at night” on May 15 on a 15-acre corner parcel near Kelly Park and Fairfield School roads saying it expected to complete the study on Aug. 15.

The Bluegrass Pipeline is not affiliated with the $300 million Hickory Bend project that will move through Mahoning County and three townships in Columbiana County including Unity, Fairfield and Salem.

Approximately $150 million in pipeline will be laid along the 55-mile long Hickory Bend system originating in western Pennsylvania and finishing up in Salem Township.

During Boardwalk Pipeline Partners second quarter earnings call, posted on the Seeking Alpha website on Monday, the aggregate cost for the Bluegrass Pipeline was placed at $300 million for this year.

More information and a map of the proposed route can be viewed at bluegrasspipeline.com/the-bluegrass-project/maps/.

Boardwalk Pipeline Partners LP is a midstream company based in Houston that provides transportation, storage, gathering and processing of natural gas and liquids.

Boardwalk and its subsidiaries own and operate approximately 14,410 miles of natural gas and liquids pipelines and underground storage caverns with an aggregate working gas capacity of approximately 201 billion cubic feet and liquids capacity of approximately 18 million barrels. For more information, visit www.bwpmlp.com.

Williams, headquartered in Tulsa, Okla., is an energy infrastructure company in North America with interests in or in operating 15,000 miles of interstate gas pipelines, 1,000 miles of NGL transportation pipelines, and more than 10,000 miles of oil and gas gathering pipelines.

The company’s facilities have daily gas processing capacity of 6.6 billion cubic feet of natural gas, NGL production of more than 200,000 barrels per day and domestic olefins production capacity of 1.35 billion pounds of ethylene and 90 million pounds of propylene per year.

For more information, visit www.williams.com.

lshields@salemnews.net

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