|
APLC applies for lateral line from CINGSA Regulatory Commission of Alaska asked for certificate amendment, approval of 4-mile, 16-inch line, expansion of service area Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
Alaska Pipeline Co. has applied to the Regulatory Commission of Alaska for an amendment of its certificate of public convenience and necessity for construction of a 4.16-mile, 16-inch diameter pipeline to connect the Cook Inlet Natural Gas Storage Alaska facility to an existing APC pipeline near mile 18.2 of Kalifonsky Beach Road.
APC is a wholly owned subsidiary of Semco Energy, a wholly owned subsidiary of Semco Holding Corp., which is an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of AltaGas Ltd. APC’s affiliate Enstar Natural Gas Co. is a division of Semco Energy Inc., which has an indirect 65 percent ownership in CINGSA.
APC said CINGSA is currently interconnected solely with Kenai Beluga Pipeline LLC’s Kenai Nikiski Pipeline segment and that the proposed lateral would bypass the KNPL segment of Hilcorp’s KBPL pipeline, directly connecting APC’s Kenai to Anchorage pipeline to CINGSA.
Pressure difference APC said all of CINGSA’s customers’ gas being injected or withdrawn from the storage facility must flow through the KNPL segment, whose operating pressures are limited by tariff to between 600 and 750 pounds per square inch gauge.
Gas withdrawn from CINGSA is at higher pressures and the pressure must be mechanically reduced to enter the KNPL segment and mechanically increased, by compression, to enter the APC system, which APC told RCA is both “physically and economically inefficient.”
Once the lateral is constructed, APC said, “CINGSA gas can enter the APC system at pressures as high as 1,050 psig, or about 300 psig more than KNPL’s current operating pressure,” increasing the maximum deliverability of gas to Anchorage by some 30 million cubic feet per day, 12.5 percent, while reducing compression requirements.
Some 3,900 horsepower of additional compression, plus redundancy, would be required to achieve the same increase in deliverability without the lateral, at a cost of $15-$20 million.
APC said construction of the lateral avoids the cost of additional compression and increases APC’s Kenai to Anchorage throughput capacity from some 235 million cubic feet per day to 265 million cubic feet per day.
Reliability issue APC said construction of the lateral would also increase the number of pipeline connections to CINGSA.
Most of the gas bound for injection in CINGSA, which stores gas for use when demand increases in colder weather, comes from the KBPL system “and does not incur an additional transportation charge once it enters the KNPL segment,” APL said. “CINGSA customers are likely to continue to utilize the KNPL segment to transport gas for injection into storage, since gas being transported on the KNPL segment does not incur an additional tariffed charge from KBPL.”
The lateral would be used primarily for withdrawal, but would also be used as a second connection to CINGSA for injection during emergencies or maintenance situations.
APL said CINGSA represents 40 percent of gas deliverability to major Cook Inlet customers during winter months, so “any failure on the KNPL segment could be catastrophic without a secondary means of withdrawing gas from CINGSA.”
Since CINGSA gas must be decompressed before it is injected into the KNPL segment and then compressed to enter APC’s higher pressure system at APC’s Kalifonsky station, use of the lateral will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by eliminating the horsepower required for decompression and recompression.
APC said transportation costs will be reduced for gas withdrawn from CINGSA, since gas shipped on the lateral would be spared the 29 cents per thousand cubic feet charge for transportation on the KBPL system, expected to save CINGSA customers an estimated $1.3 million to $1.7 million annually in gross transportation costs.
The lateral would also “defer, diminish, or eliminate” the need to add compression at APC’s Kalifonsky station.
| 