Socalgas

California’s oil/natural gas supervisor late Thursday issued a second emergency order aimed at getting faster gas capture and additional data on the seven-week-old underground storage well leak from Sempra Energy’s Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) Aliso Canyon facility on the northern edge of a Los Angeles suburb.

Officials at Sempra Energy’s Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) utility on Wednesday said pre-winter underground storage operations continue unhindered by the seven-week-old leaking storage well at its 86 Bcf capacity Aliso Canyon facility 40 miles north of Los Angeles (see Daily GPI,Nov. 12).

The Los Angeles city attorney on Monday filed a lawsuit against Sempra Energy’s Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) for its handling of a seven-week-old underground natural gas storage well leak that has no end in sight (see Daily GPI,Dec. 3).

Sempra Energy’s Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) on Tuesday told local elected officials and nearby residents that it will take up to four more months to plug a gas storage well leak that began Oct. 23 (see Daily GPI,Nov. 12).

A leaking natural gas storage well at Southern California Gas Co.’s (SoCalGas) largest underground storage field north of Los Angeles may not be fixed for months, officials said Monday, and that has government regulators and environmental groups expressing growing concerns.

The natural gas storage well that has leaked for weeks at California’s largest underground gas storage facility is being plugged and eventually will be abandoned in the days ahead, but it is only one of 115 similar wells at the Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) 86 Bcf Aliso Canyon underground site that was once a producing oilfield.

Since its discovery almost three weeks ago, a leak at Sempra Energy Southern California Gas Co.’s (SoCalGas) 100 Bcf Aliso Canyon underground storage field has tied up the utility and a cadre of outside well experts who have so far been unable to stop the seepage.

California regulators on Thursday delayed action on a proposal by Sempra Energy’s Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) utility to effectively enter the distributed generation arena.

Sustained widespread heat last week, particularly in the Pacific Northwest, has driven up the electric generation power burn for natural gas along the Pacific Coast from Seattle to San Diego.