The development comes as gas prices in the US are at a seven-year high, prices in Europe and Asia are rising. 

As Reuters notes, the PennEast pipeline project was started a few years ago amid a growing number of pipeline projects getting kick started out of the Appalachian region. However, opposition from environmentalists and locals have been a thorn in the side of natural gas companies looking to build pipelines in the area.

Other pipelines on the East Coast are also being bottlenecked by regulatory and legal hurdles, like the Williams Cos Inc’s Northeast Supply Enhancement project and Dominion Energy Inc’s Atlantic Coast project, which was canceled in 2020.

Reuters reports industry concern following the cancellation of the PennEast project that “additional production from the key Marcellus/Utica shale in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia will become trapped in the basin.”

The nail in the coffin was the project's lack of permits, namely a water quality certification in New Jersey. 

"The PennEast partners, following extensive evaluation and discussion, recently determined further development of the project no longer is supported," PennEast said in an email, according to Reuters, adding that they have “ceased all further development of the project."

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