By Jordan Miles
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A memorandum of understanding (MOU) that would allow Buckingham County access and control of 200 acres along a proposed lateral line off of the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) could be agreed to by all parties as soon as next month.
“We finally have reached a tentative MOU with, it would be ACP, Columbia Gas, Kyanite (Mining Corp.), Blue Rock (Resources) and this board of supervisors,” said County Attorney E.M. Wright Jr. during the county’s Monday board of supervisors’ meeting. “Understanding that this is only a MOU, it sort of sets forth the expectations of how things will move forward,” Wright said.
According to the MOU, “Kyanite is a producer of industrial minerals and a potential natural gas consumer with operations in Buckingham County … Blue Rock Resources is the owner of certain land located in Buckingham County situated between the proposed route of the ACP and Kyanite’s operation in Buckingham County, and … the county board is interested in facilitating access to natural gas for Kyanite and other industrial companies located or that might locate in the county.”
In November, Wright told supervisors that Kyanite Mining — Buckingham’s largest private sector employer — was working with Columbia Gas and ACP “to acquire a tap, metering and a decompression station and construction of a lateral pipeline off of (the ACP) that will provide natural gas to (Kyanite).”
The concept of the MOU, Wright said Monday, was that “Atlantic Coast is building a pipeline that comes through the county. There’s not enough gas demand
that Atlantic Coast can deal directly with any one person or any one entity in this county, so Columbia Gas is the proprietary owner of the rights in this area and has to contract with gas users when the amount is of that level. There is a need for (gas) at Kyanite, and they had entered into some original discussions with Columbia and Atlantic Coast about the possibility of getting natural gas to use with their operation. That is proceeding with some healthy discussion going on.”
Wright said amid the conversations between ACP and Kyanite came the notion “that the county could gain control over approximately 200 acres of land on which a lateral (line) off of the pipeline that would operate that would go to Kyanite that we could have control over 200 acres of land that we could develop, if we chose to … an industrial site that we could market as having natural gas and maybe developing enough to have other amenities there that people might find it attractive.”
“We’re working and very close to having arranged an option with Kyanite where we can purchase, for a fixed dollar amount, up to 200 acres. That 200 acres cannot be definitively (sited now) … I can’t say it’s that 200 acres or that 200 acres … because there’s still some necessity for that lateral line to come from (the ACP) to the Kyanite operation.”
The tap to the lateral line from the 42-inch ACP, Wright said in November, would carry enough capacity “to handle the needs of Kyanite, plus maybe three to four companies the size of Kyanite,” he said.
Kyanite is the world’s largest producer of the industrial minerals kyanite and mullite, according to its website. Refractories — heat-resistant materials that constitute the linings for high-temperature furnaces and reactors — consume a majority of the minerals.
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