Falcon Gas Storage Co. Inc. subsidiary NorTex Gas Storage Co. LLC will hold an open season for capacity at its Worsham-Steed and Hill-Lake facilities in North Texas starting Jan. 28. Bids are due by Feb. 12.

“We will be leasing up to 6 Bcf of capacity for single and multi-year contracts that start April 1, 2009,” said John Holcomb, vice president of marketing. “A variety of storage services will be offered, including two- to five-cycle firm storage and load-following and hourly balancing (LFHB), for this coming summer.”

Falcon’s 24-hour intraday LFHB service provides gas-fired power plants with a way to balance daily gas purchases with hourly power dispatch. North Texas is dominated by gas-fired power generation.

Last spring Falcon said it received 16 Bcf in interest when it offered 4 Bcf of capacity in an open season at Worsham-Steed and Hill Lake (see Daily GPI, April 1, 2008; Feb. 20, 2008).

“NorTex is now the largest independent operator of third-party storage in North Texas,” said Falcon President Jim Goetz. “We’ve added 25 Bcf of working gas capacity, a 60-mile, high-pressure gas transmission pipeline and two state-of-the-art cryogenic gas plants totaling 140 MMcf/d of processing capacity.”

Last month Falcon’s founders sold part of their equity in the company to investment firm Arcapita, which took over management of the company (see Daily GPI, Dec. 9, 2008).

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