Summit wins approval for central Maine pipeline
State regulators have given the go-ahead to Summit Natural Gas of Maine to build a natural gas pipeline through 17 central Maine communities, the Kennebec Journal reported, heating up the Colorado-based company's competition with Maine Natural Gas for that market.
Stephen Ward, a former member of the state's Public Utilities Commission and Maine Public Advocate told Mainebiz that the situation where two utility companies are poised to compete over the same territory is uncommon and made possible by a quirk in Maine's public utility policy.
In the background, both companies continue to compete for an embattled contract to provide natural gas to state buildings around the capital. Maine Natural Gas is currently contesting in Kennebec Valley Superior Court a state panel's recension of that contract, which followed an appeal by Summit.
Dan Hucko, a spokesman for Maine Natural Gas, told the Kennebec Journal that both companies could ultimately have two parallel pipelines along the same road — Route 17 — from Windsor to Augusta.
Maine Natural Gas began laying its pipeline in October to serve the Augusta area. Summit told the paper that it expects to have as many as 400 contract workers completing separate sections of the newly approved pipeline this year.
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