Enbridge puts part of Ohio TEAL natgas pipe project into service

Canadian energy company Enbridge Inc said on Tuesday it put part of its Texas Eastern Appalachian Lease (TEAL) natural gas pipeline project in Ohio into service, according to a company filing with U.S. federal energy regulators.

TEAL is one of several gas pipelines designed to connect growing output in the Marcellus and Utica shale basins in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio with customers in other parts of the United States and Canada.

The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved Enbridge's request to put the 0.95-billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) TEAL project into service on Sept. 12.

One billion cubic feet of gas is enough to fuel about 5 million homes for a day.

TEAL was designed to provide additional supplies for the $2.6 billion NEXUS gas pipeline from Ohio to Michigan.

NEXUS is a partnership between Enbridge and Michigan energy company DTE Energy Inc .

Enbridge projected it would be able to put both TEAL and NEXUS into service in the third quarter of 2018.

Enbridge asked FERC for permission to put part of NEXUS into service in September but is still waiting for that approval.

Once it enters service, the 255-mile (410-kilometer) NEXUS project will carry up to 1.5 bcfd of gas from the Marcellus and Utica shale fields to U.S. Midwest and Gulf Coast and Ontario in Canada.

New pipelines built to remove gas from the Marcellus and Utica basins have enabled shale drillers to boost output in the Appalachia region to a forecast record high of around 29.4 bcfd in October from 24.2 bcfd during the same month a year ago.

That represents about 36 percent of the nation's total dry gas output of 81.1 bcfd expected on average in 2018. A decade ago, the Appalachia region produced just 1.6 bcfd, or 3 percent of the country's total production in 2008.

(Reporting by Scott DiSavino Editing by Susan Thomas)