Mariner East 2 Pipeline enters service

Energy Transfer LP recently announced that its Mariner East 2 natural gas liquids (NGLs) pipeline has entered service and is available for both interstate and intrastate service.

The 350-mile pipeline transports domestically produced ethane, propane, and butane east from processing plants in Ohio across West Virginia and Pennsylvania to Energy Transfer’s Marcus Hook Industrial Complex in Delaware County, PA. The NGLs are stored at Marcus Hook for distribution to local, domestic and waterborne markets.

Mariner East 2 is part of Energy Transfer’s Mariner East system of pipelines designed to provide NGL takeaway capacity for the Marcellus and Utica Shale production areas in Eastern Ohio, West Virginia and Western Pennsylvania. The Mariner East 2X pipeline, which parallels Mariner East 2, is expected to enter service in late 2019.

The Delaware County Council contracted with G2 Integrated Solutions to perform an independent study of the risks associated with the operation of the Mariner East 2 pipeline as well as the converted Adelphia pipeline. The report concluded that the estimated individual fatality risk levels for the pipelines fall within a range of other common risk sources such as traffic accidents, house fires and falls from stairs. The Delaware County Council held a public presentation of the Pipeline Risk Assessment on December 17.

According to a 2015 economic impact study conducted by EConsult Solutions, the total impact from the construction of the Mariner East pipelines is estimated to be more than $9.1 billion in Pennsylvania. Once completed, the projects will have provided more than 9,500 construction jobs per year for six years, with associated earnings of more than $2.7 billion.