Crews back at work on West Virginia MVP site

Crews are back at work constructing the Mountain Valley Pipeline at a site along the Greenbrier River in Summers County.

During a recent visit to the site with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., Tom Karam, CEO of project developer Equitrans Midstream Corp., said work there would take "a little bit less than two weeks."

The developers remain hopeful the project will be completed by the end of year, Karam said.

"We've got a couple of months worth of construction remaining, and we're still on track to be able to complete this project by the end of the year and flow gas for the people of West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina for the winter of 2024," he said.

There were around 3,800 contractors working on the project as of Sept. 1, Karam said.

"Over the next 10 days to the next couple of weeks, we plan to max out at about 4,500 people," he said.

Karam thanked Manchin for helping to "get us to this point to be back to construction."

Those working on the MVP are contributing to "the energy security of this country," Manchin said.

"This is going to make a difference," he said. "This is a game changer, not only West Virginia, but basically for the whole eastern seaboard. The energy that we have under our feet in West Virginia, we are more than happy to share it with the rest of the county."

The MVP, a 303-mile-long pipeline designed to carry natural gas from West Virginia to markets in the mid-Atlantic, has faced numerous setbacks and delays since it was initially announced in 2014.

Mandates for the project's completion were included in the federal Fiscal Responsibility Act.

The package, passed by Congress at the beginning of June following an impasse over raising the nation’s borrowing limit, required all federal permits needed for the stalled pipeline to resume construction to be issued and for legal challenges against the project to be dropped.

On Aug. 11, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit granted a motion to dismiss a set of lawsuits brought by environmental groups against the project, the last hurdle standing in the way of restarting constriction.

When the MVP was first announced, its developers estimated its total cost would be around $3.5 billion. They now estimate the final price will be "approximately $6.6 billion."

The MVP’s route in West Virginia includes Braxton, Doddridge, Fayette, Greenbrier, Harrison, Lewis, Monroe, Nicholas, Summers, Webster and Wetzel counties.

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