Storengy Awards Project Management Contract to Jacobs Engineering for Renovation of Gas Storage Facility in France

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Jacobs Engineering Group Incorporated (NYSE:JEC) (Pasadena, California) has secured a contract to provide engineering, procurement and construction management services to Storengy, a subsidiary of GDF Suez SA (EPA:GSZ) (Paris), to renovate a gas storage facility in Etrez, France.

In terms of volume, the Etrez site is the largest salt cavern in France. Located north of Bourg-en-Bresse in the Ain region, the complex consists of 17 salt caverns at depths ranging from 1,250 meters to 1,900 meters. The salt from which the caverns are formed was deposited during the Upper Eocene time period, approximately 34 million years ago.

The renovation is aimed at increasing the site's capacity by creating four salt caverns while at the same time improving performance by optimizing energy consumption. The works will enable the complex to blend more fully into the environment, for example by replacing gas-powered engines and turbines with electric motors. This is expected to take three years.

Under the terms of the contract, Jacobs Engineering will design gas compression and treatment facilities, an overall control system, and various utilities on site. Gas at the Etrez site is stored at pressures between 209.7 bars and 244 bars. A bar is equal to 100 kilopascals and is almost the same as standard atmospheric pressure.

Underground salt caverns are well suited to the storage of natural gas, enabling additional supplies to be stored to meet peak demands. A salt cavern is formed from existing salt deposits, which over time can leach up through the overlying sedimentary layers of rock to form large underground domes. Once such a dome has been located, a salt cavern is created artificially by drilling down into the salt dome and injecting copious amounts of water into the dome. The water gradually dissolves the salt, leaving an empty cavern, in a process known as salt cavern leaching. This process can take as long as eight years.

The water returned from the leaching process contains a high proportion of salt, and to avoid pollution, the saline water is transferred by a 60-kilometer duct to Poligny in the Jura region in eastern France, where a facility run by Solvay Electrolyse France SAS (Paris) recycles the brine for industrial use. The walls of a leached salt cavern are solid and provide a natural resistance to leakage of gas injected into the cavern.

Storengy was created in January 2009 to design, build, manage and operate underground storage sites for natural gas in France as well as abroad. Storengy operates 12 sites in France and is operating or developing sites in Germany, the United Kingdom and Canada. The storage sites include four salt caverns, nine aquifers and three depleted gas fields with a total capacity of 10,046 million cubic meters.

Other salt cavern storage sites are located in Tersanne and Manosque in southern France, with Peckensen being the only salt cavern storage facility in Germany.

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