Bids during an open season for working storage capacity in the Phase II expansion of the Hill-Lake Gas Storage field exceeded planned capacity by nearly 50%, according to developer Falcon Gas Storage Co. Inc.

Falcon has planned additional capacity of 3.7 Bcf for the high-deliverability, multi-cycle (HDMC) facility. Hill-Lake serves markets in the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) area, as well as other parts of North, West and East Texas.

“Our over-subscription highlights the need for more HDMC storage serving the continuing growth in gas-fired generation in the DFW and West Texas markets,” said Mark Courtney, Falcon’s vice president of storage marketing operations. Courtney said Hill-Lake is connected to El Paso’s North Texas pipeline and to Lone Star’s Line X, which gives the facility flexibility to flow gas either to Waha or to the DFW area.

Falcon acquired Hill-Lake in April 2001, and the Phase I retrofit of the original single-cycle facility for HDMC service was completed in March 2002.

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