Kinder Morgan announced on Wednesday that it indefinitely suspended its proposed Northeast Energy Direct pipeline, a project that was inspiring resistance in Albany County as well as elsewhere in the seven states it would have crossed to deliver fracked gas from Pennsylvania to New England.

Tennessee Gas Pipeline, owned by Kinder Morgan Inc., had planned to largely follow pipeline routes that exist now in the towns of New Scotland, Berne, and Knox, while expansions of pipe laterals might have extended the project through new areas of Berne and Westerlo.

The Knox Town Board last week passed a resolution opposing the project as the town of Bethlehem had done earlier.

“There’s potential danger,” Bethlehem Supervisor John Clarkson told The Enterprise this month. “There’s usurpation of property rights. There’s really no support for it among citizen groups or local governments.”

Berne’s conservation board did its own study of the possible effects of the pipeline expansion; its goal was “to protect, and require the restoration of wetlands and related ecosystems,” the report said.

While groups opposing the pipeline are claiming credit for the suspension, Richard Wheatley, the director of corporate communications and public affairs for Kinder Morgan, told The Enterprise the decision had nothing to do with the protests.

“You can’t build these projects on spec,” he said. “You need adequate capacity commitments in advance.”

Wheatley said that Kinder Morgan’s $3.3 billion project was based on existing contractual commitments at the time by local gas distribution companies to purchase natural gas from the project, as well as expected commitments from additional gas distribution companies and from electric distribution companies, and other market participants in New England.

But, Wheatley said, Tennessee Gas Pipeline did not get the added commitments it had expected. “We had inadequate commitments from the customers...the people shipping the gas or moving it,” he said.

Wheatley said several factors caused the lack of customers. “It’s partly because New England states have not established regulatory procedures for binding electric distribution companies’ commitments. “The process in each state is open-ended,” said Wheatley, “so the outcome isn’t assured.”

Also, he said, since prices for fuel are now lower than they have been in recent years, it is difficult for producers to make long-term commitments.  “The low-price environment affects production,” he said.

Finally, he said that “market conditions” make it hard for Tennessee Gas to “secure incremental supply for the project.”

He went on, “Continuing to develop the project is not an acceptable use of shareholder funds.”

Wheatley concluded, “We’ve suspended work on the project indefinitely; there will be no further expenditures. We will work with customers to explore alternative solutions.”