Due in part to the energy infrastructure damage and disruptions along the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of last year’s hurricanes, FERC anticipates that applications seeking to build 14 new natural gas storage projects will be filed over the next five years, the agency told Congress and the Bush administration Friday.

The projects will represent 4,380 MMcf/d of new peak-deliverability capacity and 125 Bcf of storage capacity, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said in its “Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2006-2011” that was submitted to the Senate, House and Office of Management and Budget.

“Additional storage facilities will provide services needed to help balance the Gulf Coast region’s anticipated growth in supply, the change in operations associated with energy infrastructure damage and the anticipated new volumes of imported LNG,” the Commission said.

FERC also told the administration and Capitol Hill lawmakers that it “will employ a comprehensive energy market oversight program” that “will review all key markets daily to detect both suspicious behavior by individual market participants and problems with market rules or operations that significantly affect outcomes.”

The oversight program will use real-time capability to address rapidly developing situations and emergencies, according to FERC. The Commission’s Market Monitoring Center will collect data from 14 sources, including data on prices, physical flows on natural gas pipelines and electric transmission systems, the operating status of some generating units, and “some aspects of individual transactions on some trading platforms,” it said.

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