RCA lists questions for CINGSA testimony

Alan Bailey

Petroleum News

The Regulatory Commission of Alaska has sent Cook Inlet Natural Gas Storage Alaska, its customers and the state attorney general’s office a list of questions relating to CINGSA’s proposed upgrade of its gas storage facility on the Kenai Peninsula. As previously reported in Petroleum News, CINGSA wants to upgrade its facility to eliminate some single points of failure and, thus, to assure the reliability of gas supplies to utilities when gas demand is high during the winter - the company has asked the RCA to approve the upgrades, to mitigate the risk of CINGSA not being able to recover the cost of upgrades from its usage rates.

The RCA has agreed to conduct a hearing into the matter and has requested testimony from CINGSA and its customers. The questions that the commission has now issued are intended to guide participants in the hearing over what issues the RCA wants to see addressed in their testimony.

The questions cover topics such as the quality of the services that CINGSA supplies and the likelihood that those services may not be available when needed, using performance data for the storage facility for at least four years. The RCA also wants to better understand the ability of the Cook Inlet gas fields to respond to gas deliverability challenges.

The commission is asking Enstar Natural Gas Co. about its desire for and willingness to pay for the proposed redundancy upgrades - Enstar is CINGSA’s primary customer.

Other issues addressed by RCA’s questions include an assessment of CINGSA’s upgrade proposals, and of whether there may be advantage in implementing some of the upgrades incrementally, rather than all at the same time. The commission also wants CINGSA to explain its decision over the number of new wells to be drilled as part of the upgrades, and to explain some parameters relating to the service life of wells in the facility.

- ALAN BAILEY