Last week, Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court ruled in favor of Sunoco Logistical Partners, clearing one more legal block to using eminent domain to finish building its Mariner East 2 pipeline. The court dismissed a lawsuit by three Cumberland County landowners that Sunoco couldn’t exercise eminent domain to build the pipeline across their properties.

Sunoco Logistics Partners has been fighting to get the right to use eminent domain if necessary. ME2 is a $2.5 billion, 350-mile natural gas liquids pipeline that will run from eastern Ohio through Pennsylvania to the Marcus Hook refinery near Philadelphia.

KEEP ON PIPING? With two court strikes against landowner’s rights, Sunoco’s Mariner East 2 project may continue digging forward.

Sunoco is already pumping propane through the Mainer East 1 pipeline and has plans to add a second and third pipeline next to the existing pipeline, collectively called Mariner East 2. It would cart ethane, butane and propane to the facility from both the Utica and Marcellus region. At Marcus Hook, the NGLs would then be separated and sent on their way to domestic and export destinations.

Because the project technically crosses a state line, the landowners contended that the federal government, not Pennsylvania, is the proper government body to oversee it. Sunoco LP has maintained from the beginning that it’s a public utility, properly regulated by the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission and not the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The PUC has recognized Sunoco LP and its Mariner pipeline projects as public utilities, with the right to use eminent domain to condemn properties of holdout landowners.

According to the Commonwealth Court, Mariner East 2 is regulated by both the PUC and FERC, and Sunoco has the right to use eminent domain.

Source: Marcellus Drilling News