National Fuel no longer pursuing its plan for the Northern Access Pipeline

"National Fuel Gas Supply Corporation and Empire Pipeline, Inc., no longer intends to pursue an extension of the Northern Access Project’s FERC certificate, which expires at the end of the calendar year. When initially developed 10 years ago, this project was the Company’s “Plan A” to move Seneca Resources Company’s growing production out of the Pennsylvania basin. When New York regulators put that project in limbo in 2017, we quickly pivoted to “Plan B” – the FM100 Project, a Pennsylvania-based project which was completed in 2021 and moves Seneca’s production to the Transco system. All the while, the Company continued to pursue Northern Access because we believed the region needed more pipeline infrastructure to serve growing demand and we had a FERC-certificated project that would deliver significant volumes into New York State and connected markets. Due to several years of litigation on key regulatory approvals, we never put shovels in the ground. Earlier this summer, that litigation was favorably resolved in the courts, which led us to take another look at the project. At the end of the day and nearly 10 years later, a substantial increase in expected project costs along with the ongoing challenges facing natural gas pipeline development in New York led us to decide to cease further project development efforts."