FERC on Wednesday gave Arlington Storage Co. the green light to begin service at its Thomas Corners Storage Field in southern New York state on an interim basis.

The Thomas Corners field, a converted natural gas production field in Bath, NY, has a total working capacity of approximately 7 Bcf, along with maximum withdrawal and injuection capabilities of 140 MMcf/d and 70 MMcf/d, respectively. In May 2008 Arlington Storage said it sold all the available capacity in its storage project.

The new storage capacity is especially critical along the Mid-Atlantic/Northeast pipeline corridor, which serves major industrial and electric generating gas consumption markets, said Arlington Storage, a subsidiary of Kansas City, MO-based Inergy LP. It noted that gas supply is being brought to these markets not only from traditional Gulf Coast supply sources, but also from Canada, the Rocky Mountains and the liquefied natural gas import terminal at Cove Point, MD.

The Thomas Corners Storage Field, which the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved in late 2008, interconnects with Tennessee Gas Pipeline’s Line 400 and Columbia Gas Transmission’s A-5 line, which accesses the Millennium Pipeline (see Daily GPI, Dec. 19, 2008).

Inergy acquired Arlington Storage in late 2007 (see Daily GPI, Sept. 6, 2007). In addition to Thomas Corners, Arlington Storage is the majority owner and operator of Steuben Gas Storage Co., which has a storage facility in Steuben County, NY, with 6.2 Bcf of working gas capacity. Arlington Storage parent Inergy also owns the Stagecoach storage operation in New York.

Inergy said it controls more than 40 Bcf of working storage capacity, making it one of the largest independent gas storage operators in the Northeast.

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