FERC Thursday approved a request of Tres Palacios Gas Storage LLC, a subsidiary of Westport, CT-based NGS Investments LP, to place its entire storage header system in Texas in service.

Steckman Ridge LP, a joint venture of Spectra Energy and New Jersey Resources, also received a green light to place three storage wells and three lateral lines in service in Bedford County, PA, where it is constructing a 12 Bcf gas storage facility to serve markets in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions, the company said this week [CP08-15].

In its request, Tres Palacios said it was nearing completion of the construction of the segment of the header system between interconnections with Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line (Transco) and Tennessee Gas Pipeline (see Daily GPI, July 16). With the completion of this segment, Tres Palacios said the entire header system would be done [CP07-90].

The 41.72-mile, looped bidirectional header pipeline will be connected to a number of interstate and intrastate pipelines besides Transco and Tennessee, including Florida Gas Transmission, Natural Gas Pipeline Co. of America, Kinder Morgan Tejas, Texas Eastern Transmission, Enterprise Texas, Houston Pipe Line and Enterprise Intrastate.

Tres Palacios said it had constructed and placed into service nine of the 12 interconnects and associated measurement facilities authorized by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

In late 2008 and early this year Tres Palacios received authorization to place into service storage caverns one and two, as well as its gas handling facility and previously constructed portions of the header pipeline system (see Daily GPI, Oct. 2, 2008). The storage facility in Matagorda County, TX, is using existing underground salt caverns on the Markham Dome.

A third cavern is targeted for service in 2010, according to Tres Palacios. The three-cavern facility has planned working gas storage capacity of 36.62 Bcf, and will have the ability to receive injections of up to 1 Bcf/d and handle withdrawals of up to 2.5 Bcf/d.

NGS is a relatively new private company managed by industry veterans with experience in gas storage development, including some former Sempra Energy gas storage officials who helped develop the Bluewater storage field in Michigan among other projects.

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