The natural gas firm Williams plans to add just over 26 miles of 42-inch-diameter pipeline adjacent to its existing Transco pipeline corridor in Pittsylvania County as part of a larger upgrade to increase how much gas the multistate system can carry.
Williams will hold an in-person open house about the project from 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesday at the community center at 115 S. Main St. in Chatham and a virtual open house from 6 to 7 p.m. March 18.
The work would be part of the company’s proposed Southeast Supply Enhancement project, which Williams said would add nearly 1.6 million dekatherms of gas per day — enough to supply 8.6 million homes — to the southeastern portion of the nearly 10,000-mile Transco system that runs from Texas to New York.
The Southeast Supply Enhancement would begin at an existing Transco compressor station in Pittsylvania County, where it would connect with the Mountain Valley Pipeline, and continue as far south as Alabama.
“This expansion will provide reliable natural gas deliveries to Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia and Alabama to meet the growing residential, commercial and industrial demand in cities across the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast,” Williams said on its project website.
The company plans to install the new pipeline adjacent to the existing Transco corridor in a process called looping, in which segments of pipe are added parallel to a main line to increase a system’s capacity.
“Essentially, it’s an efficient way of doing this expansion because we’re using existing facilities and existing rights of way,” said Mike Atchie, Williams’ director of outreach.
The 26.3 miles of pipeline in Pittsylvania County would be the majority of the 30.6-mile section called the “Eden Loop,” with the rest in Rockingham County, North Carolina. Williams also plans a 24-mile “Salem Loop” elsewhere in North Carolina.
Atchie said all potentially affected Pittsylvania County landowners have been notified, although he declined to provide an exact number. Most are individual landowners, and all are people whose property already has been impacted by the existing Transco pipeline, he said.
Atchie noted that the Transco pipeline has been operating in the area since the 1950s: “We have a 75-year-long history in Pittsylvania County.”
Williams recently filed documents with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission detailing the project’s proposed scope and route. FERC regulates the construction of interstate pipelines and must approve the project for it to proceed.
In its filing, Williams outlined how the Southeast Supply Enhancement project would begin at Transco’s Compressor Station 165 in the Transco Village complex of facilities outside Chatham, where the company plans to add two new 22,500-horsepower compression units.
The 42-inch-diameter Mountain Valley Pipeline is planned to run 303 miles from West Virginia through six Virginia counties to that compressor station, where it will connect to the Transco system. Mountain Valley’s lead developer says it anticipates the approximately $7.6 billion project will be finished next quarter.
Williams said the expanded Transco system would then carry natural gas to an existing Transco facility in Pittsylvania County; two facilities in Rockingham County, North Carolina; and one in Choctaw County, Alabama.
The company said that it anticipates construction on the Southeast Supply Enhancement to begin in fall 2026, with the expansion coming online by the end of 2027.
Williams said subscribers have already signed up for all of the anticipated new capacity.
Duke Energy Carolinas would account for 1 million dekatherms per day, while Southern Company Services — a subsidiary of the Atlanta-based energy utility Southern Company — would account for 400,000. The city of Danville would subscribe to 1,500 dekatherms per day for local needs.
The project would require a variety of permits in Virginia related to its potential impacts on air, soil and water, as well as consultation with state officials on the project’s potential impact on endangered species. Williams said it expects to file for most of those approvals this year.
Pittsylvania County Administrator Stuart Turille Jr. said the Southeast Supply Enhancement would improve the Transco property in the county, bringing more real estate tax revenue.
He said it also would boost the supply of natural gas in the county, helping locations such as the 3,528-acre Southern Virginia Megasite at Berry Hill industrial park, where officials hope to attract a major employer.
Turille said he has heard from some residents about the project, mostly people seeking to verify that the communications from Williams are legitimate, but he has not received any complaints.
“To me, the questions are, what is the benefit to the county, and does it create any more of an impact on the community and the landowners? … I don’t see anything negative,” Turille said.
Pipeline projects in Virginia have been met with resistance in recent years from some landowners and from activists who oppose increased usage of natural gas and the effects such projects have on their surrounding environment.
The Mountain Valley Pipeline was originally scheduled for completion in 2018 but has been delayed by numerous legal and permitting challenges, while the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which would have run 600 miles from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina, was canceled in July 2020 after years of delays and running billions of dollars over budget.
The Charlottesville-based nonprofit Southern Environmental Law Center said in a statement that Williams’ Southeast Supply Enhancement project “would commit the South to methane gas for the next 30, 40, or 50 years when there are cleaner, more reliable, and more affordable energy alternatives available.”
“An expansion of the pipeline would burden communities along the route with polluting infrastructure and move up to 1.5 billion cubic feet of methane gas per day, a fossil fuel that is 80 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere,” the SELC said.