UK: Storengy Progresses with Construction of Stublach Gas Storage to Come On-Stream with First Gas in Mid-2013

---

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Storengy (Northwich, England), a subsidiary of GDF Suez (EPA:GSZ) (Paris, France), is continuing with the construction of the Stublach Gas Storage Project (SGSP) in Northwich. With nearly 10 caverns already created, the project is finally reaching the completion of the first phase.

The SGSP comprises the development of 28 salt cavities at a depth of 600 metres; a gas compression and processing plant; brine/water pipelines; a nitrogen storage and distribution system; a control system and power supply; degassing tanks; a pump house; and a solution mining facility. The existing wells were drilled with mining purposes and are being used to push water at high pressure into the ground and create cavities that originally contained salt minerals. The drilling and development of the first 10 caverns started in 2008 and are scheduled for commissioning in 2016, though some of them may start operating by mid-2013. The gas compression and processing plant is under construction and will be finished by December 2012, and all the pipelines were finished in November last year.

Initially, the project was owned by INEOS Enterprises, but in August 2007 it was sold to Storengy. In 2008, Costain Group (UK) became the main contractor for the SGSP and provided front-end engineering design for the water and brine facilities. INEOS Enterprises, the former owner of the SGSP, is still involved in the project and its engineering team has been working as technical advisors since 2007, when the project was handed to Gaz de France (GDF Suez). In March 2010, Storengy awarded Jacobs Engineering Group Incorporated (NYSE:JEC) (Pasadena, California) a major contract to provide overall engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) services for the whole above-ground infrastructure, which is required to develop the new gas storage facility in Stublach, northwest England. Storengy also contracted a range of U.K.-based civil construction companies for the construction itself. Moreover, in January 2011, Storengy awarded a contract to GE Oil & Gas to manufacture and supply two compressor packages for the compression plant.

Storengy's technical manager said: "At the moment, we are still creating the cavities, we are effectively managing that internally with our own technical team, and the cavities won't be fully created until 2018. We are currently constructing a gas compression plant to deliver gas into the cavities, and that will be completed at the end of this year. Hopefully, we will get to a position where we can start trading gas in October 2013."

With an overall aggregate capacity of aproximately 400 million cubic metres, and injection/withdrawal rates as high as 33 million cubic meters per day, the SGSP is one of the largest underground gas storage projects in the U.K.

Storengy is a wholly owned subsidiary of GDF Suez, dedicated to the development and operation of underground gas storage facilities in Europe. It operates 13 underground gas storage sites in France. Nowadays, the company is involved in assets located in Germany, the U.K. and Canada.

View Plant Profile - 3003428
View Project Report - 300013340 300009590 300009591 300009580

Industrial Info Resources (IIR), with global headquarters in Sugar Land, Texas, and eight offices outside of North America, is the leading provider of global market intelligence specializing in the industrial process, heavy manufacturing and energy markets. Industrial Info's quality-assurance philosophy, the Living Forward Reporting Principle™, provides up-to-the-minute intelligence on what's happening now, while constantly keeping track of future opportunities.