The developer of the Bobcat Gas Storage facility has asked FERC for authorization to more than double the working gas capacity at its salt dome storage project in St. Landry Parish, LA.

Port Barre Investments LLC proposes to leach three new salt dome caverns to hold an additional 24 Bcf of working gas, expand the Bobcat Compressor Station, add four meter stations and loop the North and West Pipeline Corridors.

The storage facility currently is certificated for two caverns totaling 15.6 Bcf of working capacity. The expansion would raise the facility’s working capacity to 39.6 Bcf and increase the maximum deliverability to 3 Bcf/d from 1.2 Bcf/d and maximum receipt capacity to 1.6 Bcf/d from 900 MMcf/d, according to Porte Barre Investments.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) earlier this month gave Bobcat Gas Storage the green light to place one of the previously certificated caverns in service (see Daily GPI, Nov. 4). The cavern was expected to have 6 Bcf of total storage capacity at start-up, and is expandable to 7.8 Bcf. The company reported it is currently leaching the second cavern and expects to have leached enough cavern space to provide storage service from it by no later than Nov. 1, 2009.

The high-deliverability project is sited near Eunice, LA, and the Henry Hub, two of the top trading centers in the Gulf Coast region (see Daily GPI, Dec. 15, 2005). Helping to develop the Bobcat Gas Storage facility is Haddington Energy Partners III LLC, a private equity fund that provides capital to develop energy infrastructure with a focus on gas storage, gathering and processing.

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