FERC on Wednesday issued a certificate to Texas Eastern Transmission LP to expand the working gas capacity of its storage field in Garrett County, MD, by 3 Bcf.

The project would expand the working gas capacity of Tetco’s Accident Storage Field, the sole storage facility entirely owned and operated by the pipeline, to 18.3 Bcf, and would raise the maximum certificated capacity of the field by 2 Bcf to 64 Bcf.

Tetco, a Duke Energy pipeline, proposes to take three actions: 1) perform maintenance and reliability enhancements on 38 existing wells; 2) drill seven reentry horizontal injection/withdrawal (I/W) wells at existing locations and two new I/W wells; and 3) install electronic gas measurement equipment and nearly one mile of eight-inch diameter gathering lines, along with associated facilities.

These modifications will allow Tetco to achieve the proposed 3 Bcf increase in working gas capacity by converting 1 Bcf of base gas to working gas and accessing 2 Bcf of previously inaccessible reservoir capacity, according to the pipeline. The FERC order requires the $21 million storage expansion project to be constructed and placed into service within 18 months of the agency’s order.

“The proposed facilities will benefit Texas Eastern’s transportation and storage customers by enhancing the operational reliability and flexibility of the Accident field, reducing its reliance on OFOs [operational flow orders] and the borrowing of storage gas from its customers,” the FERC order said [CP05-392]. The project may not entirely eliminate Tetco’s reliance on cushion storage and on OFOs, but the improvements will significantly limit the pipeline’s need to borrow from cushion storage capacity inventory, the agency noted.

FERC also granted Tetco’s request for a presumption in favor of rolled-in rate treatment for the cost of the project.

©Copyright 2006Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news reportmay not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in anyform, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.