CINGSA reports on 2017 facility usage

Alan Bailey

Petroleum News

Cook Inlet Natural Gas Storage Alaska LLC, known as CINGSA, has filed with Alaska’s Division of Oil and Gas the company’s 2018 plan of development, which includes a summary of usage of its storage facility in 2017. Various companies, including gas and power utilities, use the facility, located south of the city of Kenai, to hold gas for later use, in particular to warehouse summer produced gas for use in the winter when gas demand is high. The facility, which stores the gas in the Sterling C sands of a depleted section of the Cannery Loop gas field, plays a particularly critical role in the depths of the winter, when gas production from the Cook Inlet basin struggles to keep pace with utility gas demand.

According to CINGSA’s new plan, gas injection into the facility in 2017 was minimal, at 63 million cubic feet, in January and peaked at 1,115 million cubic feet in August. Injection rates were relatively high from May through August. Withdrawals peaked at 1,641 million cubic feet in January and remained above 1,000 million cubic feet through March.

The facility has a maximum storage capacity of 18 billion cubic feet, including 7 billion cubic feet of working gas, used to maintain adequate pressure in the storage reservoir. Total gas stored in the facility ranged from a minimum 11.7 billion cubic feet in April, following winter gas withdrawals, to a maximum of 15.5 billion cubic feet in September, in preparation, presumably, for winter.

The plan says that fluctuations in commercial power caused a few upsets to operations at the facility: CINGSA has now installed a gas fired generator at the facility for emergency use.

CINGSA told the division that it does not anticipate any changes in the operation of the storage facility in 2018. The company is contemplating an expansion of the facility and towards the end of 2017 conducted an open season, soliciting interest in increased storage capacity. CINGSA says that it received four responses to the open season and will be meeting with interested parties in the first quarter of 2018, to discuss potential expansion plans, if any, for 2019 or beyond.

- ALAN BAILEY