The nation’s largest independent salt cavern storage operatorplans to grow its capacity with an additional cavern and pipelineinterconnects.

Petal Gas Storage (Petal), a subsidiary of Louisiana-basedCrystal Oil, plans to expand its high-deliverability salt cavernstorage facility near Hattiesburg, MS, by leaching an additionalsalt cavern with storage capacity of 5 Bcf, of which 3 Bcf would beworking gas. The new cavern, combined with the existing 5.2 Bcfcavern (3.2 Bcf working gas) would have a withdrawal capacity of600 MMcf/d.

The existing facilities at Petal have bi-directionalinterconnects with both Tennessee Gas Pipeline and Koch GatewayPipeline through a 20-inch line. The expansion would includeadditional pipeline facilities with bi-directional interconnectswith Transco, Southern Natural Gas and Destin Pipelines. Petal willoffer traditional 10-day withdrawal service as well as balancing,forwarding, parking and emergency backup services from all thefacility’s pipeline interconnections. Petal plans to distribute anopen season package outlining details of the expansion and servicesto be offered in the near future and will also seek FERCauthorization for the expansion.

David Hayden, Crystal vice president, said the company is stillworking on the details of its new interconnects and hopes to havethe information included “in our open season package that we wouldhope to have go out in about three weeks. The Southern Natural pipeis the farthest away, and it’s 55 miles from Petal. And we’restill looking at several options of ways to get to those pipes.”Rates for service have yet to be determined.

“The strategic location of Petal Gas Storage Company’s saltcavern storage with its characteristics of high deliverability andhigh injection rates combined with the opportunity to provideservice to five major pipeline systems is an exciting opportunityfor Petal and the customers of Petal,” said Crystal President JoeAverett. “Including this proposed expansion and the current storagecapacity at Petal Gas Storage and Hattiesburg Gas Storage, Crystalwill own, through its subsidiaries, 15.8 Bcf of high-deliverabilitysalt cavern natural gas storage.”

In January, Crystal became the largest independent salt cavernstorage operator in the United States with the acquisition of Petalfrom CMS Gas Transmission and Storage for $29.5 million. Theacquisition gave Crystal’s subsidiaries more than 6.7 Bcf ofworking storage capacity in the area with the ability to deliver inexcess of 670 MMcf/d

Joe Fisher, Houston

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