Greyhawk Gas Storage Co. LLC, a joint venture between Falcon Gas Storage Co. Inc. and Emera Inc., will hold an open season beginning Monday (March 17) for capacity at its Wyckoff Gas Storage Project in Steuben County, NY. Up to 6 Bcf of working gas storage capacity will be available on a firm basis for terms ranging from two-to-10 years beginning October 2004.

Services available range from single-turn service to multi-turn services. Receipt and delivery points will include the Tennessee Gas Pipeline Line 400, the Dominion Transmission TL-453 Line and the Columbia A5 Line.

Wyckoff filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in December 2002 to develop a High Deliverability, Multi-Cycle (HDMC) gas storage facility specifically designed to provide a wide range of services, from traditional seasonal storage to multi-cycle services, required to meet the growing short-term balancing needs of pipelines and gas-fired electric generators in the Northeast market (see Daily GPI, Jan. 7). The design working gas capacity is 6.1 Bcf, with a peak withdrawal capacity of 400,000 MMBtu/d and a peak injection capacity of 250,000 MMBtu/d.

“Historically, the Northeast market has relied on firm long-haul transportation services from the production area to fill seasonal storage throughout the 214-day injection season,” said Edmund Knolle, Falcon’s executive vice president. “Customers have augmented their market area storage with HDMC storage in the production area to increase supply flexibility. In order to bring these high rates of deliverability into the market during critical periods of peak demand, customers must hold large quantities of firm long-haul transportation capacity from the production area to the market area.”

According to Knolle, HDMC storage enables customers to increase the use of their existing market-area transportation rights while reducing the need to hold firm upstream transportation services year-round.

“High rates of withdrawal also allow customers, such as local distribution companies, to minimize their exposure to market-area commodity prices in the volatile winter-heating season and extend their desired level of peak-day deliverability without the cost or risk of holding additional amounts of firm transportation or large volumes of working gas inventories under seasonal storage contracts,” he added. “Higher instantaneous rates of injection create opportunities for customers to fill storage rapidly during favorable market conditions and increase opportunities for financial traders to arbitrage cash to futures markets.”

The submission deadline for capacity bids is 5 p.m. April 14, 2003. Contact Knolle at (713) 961-3204 for further information and a bid package. Bid packages also may be downloaded from the Greyhawk web site at www.falcongasstorage.com/greyhawk.htm.

©Copyright 2003 Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news report may not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in any form, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.