Leaf River Energy Center LLC last week filed an application at FERC to build a salt cavern gas storage facility in south-central Mississippi, according to its parent company NGS Energy Fund LP.

The facility proposed for Smith County, MS, would have 8 Bcf of working capacity available at market-based rates and is targeted for in-service as early as the summer of 2009, said Westport, CT-based NGS Energy. It plans to add 24 Bcf of high-deliverability working gas capacity by 2014, for a total of 32 Bcf, the company said.

Leaf River Energy Center plans to interconnect with Southern Natural Gas, Destin Pipeline, Gulf South Pipeline’s Southeast expansion, Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line, Tennessee Gas Pipeline and Kinder Morgan’s proposed Midcontinent Express along a 43-mile, dual 24-inch diameter pipeline header system, NGS Energy said.

A binding open season for available storage capacity at Leaf River will begin on Nov. 1 and close on Nov. 15 at 5 p.m. EST.

The storage project would act as a bridge between the prolific new sources of supply being developed in the Barnett, Woodford and neighboring shale plays and high-demand markets in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Southeast, NGS Energy said. It would be located on the New Home Salt Dome, well east of constraint points on the Gulf Coast interstate pipeline network, it noted.

NGS Energy, an independent developer of natural gas storage projects, also owns Tres Palacios Gas Storage, a recently FERC-permitted project located in Matagorda County, TX, and Windy Hill Gas Storage in Morgan County, CO.

For further information on the open season, contact Laura Luce at lluce@ngsenergy.com or Brad Oliver at bkoliver@ngsenergy.com or at (203) 557-4264. Information is also available from the company’s website at www.leafriverenergycenter.com.

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