What is Transco SSEP?

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Attend a public hearing and give your comment in-person!

Public Hearing Details 

When: 6 p.m., Sept. 2, 2025
Where: Rockingham Community College Advanced Technologies Building Auditorium

560 County Home Road, Wentworth, N.C., 27375
Register: Speaker registration opens at 5:30 p.m. onsite via sign-in sheet.

Public Hearing Details
When: 6 p.m., Sept. 4, 2025
Where: Kernersville Municipal Council Chambers

134 East Mountain Street, Kernersville, N.C., 27284
Register: Speaker registration opens at 5:30 p.m. onsite via sign-in sheet.

Submit your comment online or by mail!

*Written comments must be received no later than 5 pm on Oct. 6*

• Please submit written comments using this link with project No. 20240801; version 2): Public comment link. 

• Written comments may also be submitted via mail to: Samantha Wooten, 401 Permitting, 1617 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC, 27699-1617. Public comments may also be submitted by leaving a voicemail at 919-707-8495. 

• Comments received on the permit will be considered as part of a decision on the application in accordance with the timelines established in Session Law 2023-137.

• The application, related materials and the draft community profile are available online: Permit file.

Submit your e-comment at this link with “No. 20240801; version 2” in the ID # field, 

by October 6th, 2025

Overview

• Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company, LLC (“Transco,” owned indirectly by The Williams Companies, Inc.) has proposed the Southeast Supply Enhancement Project, which would expand Transco’s existing system by 1,586,900 dekatherms per day. This is roughly the same amount of gas that the Atlantic Coast pipeline would have transported. 
• This project would require the construction of  approximately 30 miles of 42” diameter pipeline in Pittsylvania County, Virginia and Rockingham County, North Carolina.
• It would also require about 24 miles of 42” pipeline in Guilford, Forsyth, and Davidson Counties in North Carolina. 
• The project would entail significant expansions of several existing compressor stations—in order to transport more gas, Transco plans to increase the horsepower at four compressor stations (one in Virginia and three in North Carolina) by amounts between 15,900 HP and 87,207 HP. 
• While Transco has contracts executed with several customers, Duke Energy Carolinas has contracted for about two thirds of it, which would fuel data center and Artificial Intelligence buildout across the southeast, that could be unneeded, according to a report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
• According to Transco, if the Southeast Supply Enhancement Project proceeds on schedule, construction could begin in early 2026 and service would begin November 1, 2027. 
• In the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) docket, MVP Southgate and Transco have been arguing about whether each project is actually needed.
• Southern Environmental Law Center recently published a report, finding “Evidence indicates that data center developers frequently submit redundant requests for electrical service across multiple jurisdictions simultaneously, and therefore their requests may be incorporated into multiple demand forecasts before they have any ‘skin in the game.’”  
• Guilford County and the Town of Midway in Davidson County have adopted resolutions on the proposed SSEP. These two municipalities are directly impacted by the project, and the resolutions outline their concerns for potential l environmental and other harm.
• The Pipeline Safety Trust pointed out in comments to FERC that of all the gas pipeline operators in the United States that have recorded incidents in the past, Transco holds one of the worst records not only in the number of incidents, but also in terms of fatalities, cost per incident, and gas spills per incident.

Water Impacts

• Transco proposes crossing 173 wetlands and streams, 165 of which would be accomplished by dry-ditch, open-cut methods. This method of crossing water bodies degrades water quality, pollutes drinking water sources, and harms habitat for aquatic species.
• Transco proposes using trenchless crossing methods for a small fraction of the water body crossings, which have an overall lesser impact on water quality than the trenched methods proposed for the vast majority of the Project’s proposed crossings. Transco’s justifications for choosing trenched methods over less harmful trenchless methods deserves scrutiny.
• Transco’s proposed crossings of North Carolina water bodies are likely to cause violations of state water quality standards.1
• The proposed route crosses both Jordan Lake and Randleman Lake watersheds which together supply drinking water to more than 1 million North Carolinians and serve as a recreational area for residents across the state.
• Transco hasn’t adequately analyzed the cumulative impacts to streams and wetlands.

Climate and Health Impacts

• Most of the gas is proposed to go to power plants run by three utilities (Duke Energy, Santee Cooper, and Georgia Power). In fact, moving 1.6 Bcf/day through a 42" diameter pipe is the same as trying to move 18,123 full Olympic sized swimming pools through a 42" pipe (or hula hoop) per day.
• This project would cause tens of millions of downstream greenhouse gas emissions every year for decades, even as the costs of renewable energy continue to drop. (The similarly sized Atlantic Coast Pipeline would have caused an estimated 30 million metric tons per year of greenhouse gases, not accounting for fugitive emissions from leaks.) As a result, there’s a good chance ratepayers will continue paying for this pipeline long after the power plants it supplies become obsolete.
• This project will impede both of these objectives. Accounting for full lifecycle emissions (i.e., upstream and downstream), it is estimated the new extraction and use of 1,587 thousand dekatherms / day of gas would amount to about 60 million metric tons (MMT) of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions per year it operates. That’s equivalent to the annual emissions from about 16 coal plants or 13 million gasoline-powered cars.

Environmental Justice

• According to EPA’s EJScreen mapping tool at least one of the gas-powered compressor stations (in Davidson County, NC) Transco plans to expand is near an area that is above the 70th percentile state-wide for low-income residents, and above the 80th percentile on the environmental justice index for PM2.5. 
• As a result, the increase in harmful substances coming from the compressor station will impact people who are already overburdened by air pollution. 
• Transco could, if it chose, eliminate such increases in harmful pollutants by  installing electric motor-driven compressor units instead of gas-powered units. 
• So far, it is not clear why Transco chose to do this for some stations and not others. In addition, one of the compressor stations Transco seeks to expand is located in the Chatham, VA area, where a permit for the Mountain Valley Pipeline Southgate extension was recently denied on environmental justice grounds.
• From NCDEQ’s community profile of SSEP, along the Eden Loop, the proposed pipeline route would through 3 census tracts in Rockingham County. Index scores for census tracts along the route range from 0.58 to 0.93. Among the 3 census tracts intersecting the Eden Loop, Census Tract 402 (Rockingham) is considered highly burdened according to the CDC definition. 
  • In Rockingham County, 34.6% of residents in the county are considered highly burdened
• From NCDEQ’s community profile of SSEP, along the proposed Salem Loop the pipeline route would through 11 census tracts in Guilford County, Forsyth County, and Davidson County. Index scores for census tracts along the route range from 0.0 to 0.75.
  • In Guilford County, 24.8% of residents in the county are considered highly burdened
  • In Davidson County, 20% of residents in the county are considered highly burdened.

The Guilford County Commissioners unanimously passed a bipartisan resolution, asking for a more thorough analysis of the proposed Southeast Supply Enhancement Project (SSEP).

Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company, LLC — a subsidiary of Williams Companies commonly referred to as Transco — wants to construct 54 miles of methane gas pipeline and expand or modify compressor stations in five states. Guilford County is the third largest county in North Carolina, and the site of the proposed start of SSEP’s “Salem Loop,” which would add roughly 24 miles of 42-inch pipe in Guilford, Forsyth and Davidson Counties if permitted and built.

Guilford County encouraged FERC to “require a comprehensive Environmental Assessment (EA) under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) that rigorously evaluates all potential risks and alternatives to the proposed pipeline expansion.” The commissioners’ resolution is the second of its kind– the town of Midway voted to oppose the project on May 5, urging Transco “to thoroughly investigate the option of a no-build alternative and to publicly report the findings with full detail and transparency.”

The commissioner’s focus on safety concerns comes as news comes out that the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline fired an inspector for reporting corrosion of the pipe that could have led to an explosion. MVP’s Southgate extension would run parallel to SSEP.

Midway became the first municipality to pass a resolution against the proposed Southeast Supply Enhancement Project. Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company, LLC — a subsidiary of Williams Companies, commonly referred to as Transco — wants to construct 54 miles of methane gas pipeline and increase the horsepower of compressor stations in Virginia and North Carolina. 

SSEP, if permitted and built, could include 10 miles of 42-inch-wide pipeline in Davidson County and a large proposed expansion of the gas-fired compressor station off of Becky Hill Road, northwest of Lexington. The town of Midway would be directly impacted by the proposed pipeline route.

Midway Town Council voted 4-1 to oppose SSEP, citing concerns over safety and negative impacts to land and water resources. The town is seeking to invest in the expansion of Midway Town Park, which would be located in the pipeline’s evacuation zone, just 0.8 miles from the proposed route. Also, the proposed compressor station expansion would increase harmful air pollution in an area that is already burdened by pollutants that can lead to adverse health problems. The town council asked Transco “to thoroughly investigate the option of a no-build alternative and to publicly report the findings with full detail and transparency.”

This week, Transco applied for two air permits to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ) for its massive proposed methane gas pipeline, the Southeast Supply Enhancement Project (SSEP).

If permitted and built, SSEP would install 55 miles of 42-inch high pressure pipeline through North Carolina and Virginia, impact nearly 1,500 acres of land, make more than 100 individual waterbody crossings in 16 watersheds, and dramatically expand two compressor stations in Iredell and Davidson Counties, North Carolina, where communities are already suffering some of the worst air pollution in the state.

The application process for SSEP’s air permits will include a public comment period, and could include public hearings.

After calls from thousands of members of the public for a full Environmental Impact Statement for SSEP, on January 22, FERC announced they would prepare the more abbreviated Environmental Assessment. They also announced there would only be a 30 day public comment period, occurring at the end of 2025. Of note, per federal regulations, if “the EA determines that the environmental impacts of a proposed Federal action will be significant, an Environmental Impact Statement is prepared.” You can submit comments in response to the news of the EA, or in opposition to the project at www.ferc.gov, Docket No. CP25-10-100.