Liberty Gas Storage Project Complete, Planning Expansion

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Liberty Gas Storage, a joint venture of Sempra Pipelines & Storage (San Diego) and ProLiance Energy (Indianapolis, Indiana), is preparing to begin commercial operation at its underground natural gas storage facility in Louisiana. Sempra Pipelines & Storage, a subsidiary of Sempra Energy (NYSE:SRE) (San Diego), owns 75% percent of the joint venture, and Proliance owns the remaining 25%. Sempra is responsible for the development and operation of the facility.

Liberty Gas Storage is located in the Calcasieu and Beauregard parishes in southern Louisiana. The facility consists of two underground salt caverns with a total working gas capacity of 17 billion cubic feet. The project also includes 24,000 horsepower of compression to allow for maximum injection of 500 million cubic feet per day, with maximum withdrawals of 1 billion cubic feet per day. The compression is provided by four 6,000-horsepower Caterpillar 3616 engine drive compressor units.

Construction began in 2006, and final touches are currently being performed. Commercial storage services are expected to begin in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Liberty Gas Storage used the services of TKE Engineering & Design (Houston, Texas) and Willbros-RPI (Tulsa, Oklahoma).

The Liberty Gas Storage facility will connect with five existing interstate pipelines and one new pipeline. The connection will consist of a 25-mile, 30-inch-diameter bi-directional pipeline, giving Liberty Gas access to 5 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas capacity on multiple pipeline systems connecting to various markets. Liberty Gas will connect to the Cameron Interstate Pipeline, Transcontinental Pipeline, Texas Eastern, Tennessee Pipeline, Florida Gas Transmission and Trunkline pipeline systems.

Liberty Gas has seen substantial interest by potential customers, which has lead to the potential development of an expansion. The expansion would take place in Cameron Parish near Hackberry, Louisiana, where Liberty already owns 160 acres of land. Preliminary plans call for the conversion of three existing caverns capable of storing 10 billion to 12 billion cubic feet and one cavern capable of storing 5 billion to 6 billion cubic feet of natural gas. New surface facilities include a 16,000- to 19,000-horsepower compressor station, including four Caterpillar-driven compressor packages, dehydration and supporting equipment. There will also be a 5-mile, 36-inch-diameter pipeline connection to the Cameron Interstate Pipeline. A 3-mile, 16-inch diameter brine pipeline and disposal wells will also be built.

Liberty Gas storage is currently in the Federal Energy Regulation Commission (FERC) pre-filling process and expects to begin construction in 2009 pending FERC approval. The project is scheduled to be operational in 2010, with overall completion scheduled for 2012.

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