Even with the price of natural gas currently hovering at around $2.21 mmBTU (one million BTU), which is about half of what it was trading at about 12 months ago, Kinder Morgan is pushing ahead with its planned gas pipeline project in the New England area.

The Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company, (TGP), which is a subsidiary of the Houston-based Kinder Morgan, recently filed a certificate application under Section 7(c) of the Natural Gas Act with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for its proposed Northeast Energy Direct Project (NED). According to a Kinder Morgan announcement, the approximately $5 billion NED Project will expand TGP's existing, extensive pipeline system in Pennsylvania, New York and New England, connecting low-cost natural gas supplies from northern Pennsylvania to New York and New England markets.

“The NED Project is a transformative project for the northeast United States,” Kinder Morgan East Region Natural Gas Pipelines President Kimberly S. Watson said recently in a statement. “Despite being just a few hundred miles from the most abundant and low-cost natural gas production area in the country, consumers in the Northeast pay some of the highest natural gas and electricity rates in the continental United States. These higher prices are due, in large part, to natural gas pipeline infrastructure that is insufficient to meet the winter heating demand of local distribution companies (LDCs) and electric generators.”