April 30 (Reuters) - Equitrans Midstream Corp ( ETRN )

said on Tuesday it expects to complete the construction and

final commissioning activities on its Mountain Valley natural

gas pipeline by the end of May at an estimated cost of $7.85

billion.

That is higher than the $7.57 billion to $7.63 billion cost

estimate the company gave in February.

Equitrans is the lead partner and operator of the pipeline,

the only major one under construction in the U.S. Northeast.

It has encountered numerous regulatory and court fights that

have stopped work several times since construction began in

2018.

Equitrans also reported a first-quarter profit that narrowly

missed estimates and said volumes and revenue were hit by gross

production curtailments announced last month by EQT Corp ( EQT )

, which is set to buy the company.

Several U.S. natgas producers curbed their output and

spending on drilling activity as an oversupplied market has

brought the prices of the commodity down to multi-decade lows.