MORGANTOWN – Hope Gas is making progress in its proposed plan to abandon certain “Red Lines” it acquired from other companies. The new developments are laid out in a Friday filing with the Public Service Commission – provided in response to a PSC order calling for a report – and in a new case filed last week.
As background, Hope originally proposed in August 2024 to abandon about 1,069 miles of lines it termed Red Lines – acquired from Equitrans and Dominion Gathering – because they are no longer necessary or useful and that providing safe, reliable, economic service to the farm-tap customers along those lines is in jeopardy because existing service is either unsafe, unreliable, uneconomical, or any combination of the three.
The lines spanned 22 counties – including Monongalia and Marion – and Hope proposed to convert about 479 farm-tap customers to propane or electricity.
The case drew substantial opposition from Hope customers and gas producers along the lines.
The case was put on hold for a while. On April 10, the PSC ordered Hope to file a status report. On April 24, Hope filed a new case with a more narrow approach to the problem. And on Thursday, Hope filed its update in the case, recapping the separate new case.
Hope’s new proposal tackles the issue in phases. It reminds the PSC that the lines require high and increasing operation and maintenance expenses and see significant lost or unaccounted for gas, and would require significant capital expense to mitigate the problems.
It has divided the Red Lines into four categories: (1) no producers or farm taps, 34 miles; (2) one producer per line and no farm taps, 62 miles; (3) multiple producers and no farm taps, 335 miles; (4) multiple producers and at least one farm tap customer, 704 miles; for a total 1,135 miles.
In its new proposal, Hope is asking the PSC permission to take the Category 1 lines – 34 miles – out of service. It estimates that cutting and capping each line would cost from $10,000-$25,000, and it would seek to recover the costs through its annual Pipeline Replacement and Expansion Program filings.
Hope would then submit subsequent petitions at later dates to take other categories out of service “pursuant to reasonable and well defined proposed timelines and procedures in those petitions.”
Hope is setting up a data room to provide detailed information to allow affected producers to determine whether they will acquire certain Red Lines from Hope instead of Hope taking them out of service. Hope said it remains willing to convey Red Lines to producers or other third parties for nominal consideration, for example, $1.
Hope told the PSC it intends to discuss processes and schedules for the Red Lines in Categories 2, 3, and 4 at the upcoming status conference set for May 21.
Hope said it knows of 26 free-gas users along the Category 1 lines, but cannot say if there are others. “However, since there are no known producer pipelines or wells connected to these Category 1 Red Lines, it is difficult to discern why any free gas users remain connected to the subject pipelines and receiving gas from Hope.”
Hope is asking the PSC to issue an order on this request by June 30. Hope said that a proposed notice included in its filing would give those users 90 days to find alternative energy source arrangements.
The proposed notice tells those users: “It is your obligation to determine if you receive free gas. A free-gas user obtains its rights to free-gas pursuant to contract with a third-party, which arrangement is not subject to the commission’s jurisdiction. Hope does not have a public utility obligation to deliver gas to a free-gas user from its pipelines, including the Category 1 Red Lines that Hope is proposing to be taken out of service in its petition.”
The notice says that pending PSC approval, Hope will cease delivering gas to free-gas users on those pipelines by July 30, 2026. “This means that affected free-gas users will need to have an alternate energy arrangement in place at its cost and expense before that date.”
