The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Wednesday gave Bobcat Gas Storage the go-ahead to place into service a second cavern at its facility in St. Landry Parish, LA.

The project is 1.5 miles southeast of Port Barre in south-central Louisiana, and will have working gas capacity of approximately 10.3 Bcf when the two caverns are in operation. The first cavern went into service in November 2008 (see Daily GPI, Nov. 4, 2008). The storage facilities may be fully built-out to as much as 15.6 Bcf by the end of the year.

The Bobcat facility is 45 miles from Henry Hub and provides access to offshore gas and onshore in Texas and Louisiana, as well as from the Barnett Shale. Bobcat interconnects with five interstate pipelines — Florida Gas Transmission Co., Texas Eastern Transmission Corp., Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Corp., ANR Pipeline Co. and Gulf South Pipeline Co. — and delivers gas to markets in the Northeast, Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast and Florida.

Bobcat is being developed by Port Barre Investments LLC, Haddington Energy Partners III LP and GE Energy Financial Services. GE Energy Financial Services acquired an initial preferred equity interest in Bobcat in 2007 for $65 million, marking its first equity investment in natural gas storage (see Daily GPI, Feb. 27, 2007).

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