Dive Brief:

• Backers of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline have delayed construction by almost a year, but say there will be no impact on the system's projected inservice date or project costs, the Charlotte Business Journal reports. 
• Dominion Energy told the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that requests for additional project information and the possibility of utilizing alternative routes means the delay is necessary. Construction, slated to begin this fall, will likely not get started until summer 2017.
• The $5.1 billion system will transport gas supplies from West Virginia to North Carolina, and is being developed by Dominion, Duke Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas and AGL Resources. Last year, regulators instructed the companies to consider alternate routes, in order to mitigate impact on the Monongahela and George Washington National Forests.

Dive Insight:

Data requests from FERC and the possibility that an alternate route will be utilized have led backers of the ACP to push back groundbreaking. But they say the 18-month construction period will not have an impact on the project's schedule, and there will be no resulting increase in costs.

“We believe it can be completed on the same schedule. It is just a matter of how we position our resources and work crews,"  Dominion spokesman Aaron Ruby told Charlotte Business Journal.

The delay follows detailed data requests from federal regulators, but Ruby said the project is still expected to be complete by late 2018.

The project hit a snag last year when regulators told the consortium of developers, "You should be aware that through our consultations with the U.S. Forest Service and our interpretation of the prescriptive-specific goals, objectives, standards, and guidelines listed in the respective Monongahela and George Washington National Forests’ Land and Resource Management Plans, we have determined that alternative routes to the south of the currently proposed ACP route may offer environmental advantages over the currently proposed route."

The companies say they considered more than 3,000 miles of potential routes and made hundreds of route adjustments based on discussions with landowners, public officials and others.