Current Projects
Junction Natural Gas Storage Facility
eCORP and Tenaska are currently developing the Junction Natural Gas Storage Facility (“JCT Storage”) through their ownership in Chestnut Ridge Storage, LLC (“Chestnut Ridge”). The JCT Storage facility is located in Fayette County, Pennsylvania and Preston and Monongalia Counties, West Virginia. The storage facility is named in honor of and in memory of the late co-founder of eCORP, John C. Thrash - “JCT”.
Chestnut Ridge is converting an existing natural gas production field (the West Summit Field) into a high-deliverability, multi-cycle storage facility with up to 25 billion cubic feet of working gas capacity and up to 500,000 dekatherms per day of injection and withdrawal capability. JCT Storage will include up to 26 storage injection/withdrawal wells and up to 11 observation wells. It will also incorporate a compressor station, a gathering pipeline system, and two interconnection laterals linking JCT Storage with the interstate natural gas pipeline facilities of Columbia Gas Transmission Corporation, Dominion Transmission, Inc., and Texas Eastern Transmission, L.P.
JCT Storage is strategically located in southwestern Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia, and will provide service to the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic market areas. It has been designed to provide highly flexible services that, unlike the services generally available from conventional gas storage facilities in the region, can be specifically tailored to each customer’s needs. This flexibility will provide customers with a valuable new “on-demand” asset to help manage their strategic and operational gas requirements, especially as such needs are dictated by unplanned circumstances.
More information is available at www.JCTstorage.com.
Past Projects
Stagecoach Gas Storage Facility
The Stagecoach Natural Gas Storage Facility was aquired by Inergy in August 2005. Please see press release section for more information on the sale.
eCORP, through its former affiliate, Central New York Oil And Gas Company, LLC (“CNYOG”), developed Phase I of the Stagecoach Natural Gas Storage Facility (“Stagecoach”), a high-performance underground natural gas storage facility that straddles the south central border of New York and the north central border of Pennsylvania. Stagecoach is the eastern most underground natural gas storage facility in the United States. This high performance facility is a FERC certificated project that provides firm and interruptible services at market based rates. Stagecoach has also been permitted by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC). The storage facility was developed by converting an existing producing natural gas field, known as the Stagecoach Field, into a high performance, multiple cycle per year natural gas storage field. The conversion utilized eCORP's proprietary storage development technology, known as Salternatives Technology, which is used to develop high-performance storage fields. The Stagecoach Field was evaluated by others for storage development, but traditional storage development (i.e., seasonal, single cycle storage) at Stagecoach was determined to be uneconomical. The advantages of Salternatives Technology made it possible for eCORP to develop high performance, multiple cycle storage at Stagecoach.
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Stuart Natural Gas Storage Facility
Several of eCORP's principals were involved in the design, construction and operation of the Stuart natural Gas Storage Facility in Oklahoma. The Stuart Natural Gas Storage Facility began commercial operations in July 1995. The facility serves Oklahoma Gas and Electric Company's (OG&E) widely fluctuating gas supply requirements at its 1500 megawatt Seminole power plant. The project's technology incorporates a unique blend of horizontal wells and reservoir mechanics to achieve high deliverability performance characteristics similar to those associated with salt dome storage caverns. The facility is the first depleted field storage project to rely entirely on the use of horizontal storage wells. It is also the first storage facility implemented utilizing Salternatives Technology. This technology provides high initial deliverability performance typical of cavern type storage with the large volumetric volume capacity typically associated with depleted fields.
The Stuart Facility consisted of a 13 Bcf (working volume) gas storage field, a 40 mile 20" pipeline, and a 10,000 horsepower compressor station utilizing variable speed electric drive compression. The Facility is capable of delivering a maximum of approximately 400,000 MMcf/d of gas to OG&E's 1500 MW Seminole Electric Generating Plant near Konawa, Oklahoma and to other delivery points.
The Stuart gas reservoir is located in Southeast Oklahoma. Prior to its conversion, the field was a depleted natural gas field originally discovered and developed in 1959. The field was completed in the Hartshorne formation, a Pennsylvania sandstone that is approximately 80 feet thick, at a depth of approximately 3000 feet. The original reservoir pressure was 1050 psi. The average permeability is 10 millidarcies and the average porosity is 10 percent.
Initial performance of the horizontal wells drilled in the Stuart Gas Storage Field confirmed pre-project engineering estimates that horizontal wells designed for the project would deliver gas at a multiple of the rate expected from vertical wells. In addition to significant improvements in deliverability and injectivity, the wells demonstrated excellent transient properties when required to cycle between high rates of injection and withdrawal required to meet OG&E's gas load. The short term response to changes between injection and withdrawal is similar to the response expected for cavern-type storage.
Katy Hub and Natural Gas Storage Facility
Several of eCORP's principals, through an eCORP affiliate, Natural Gas Storage Company of America (NGSC), initiated development of the Katy Hub and Natural Gas Storage Facility in the early 1990’s. In the early development stages, Phillips Petroleum Company joined NGSC in this project. Prior to the commencement of construction, the project was sold to Western Gas Resources, although NGSC retained a small ownership interest. The facility was subsequently completed by Western Gas Resources, and later sold to Aquila in 2001.
Located just west of Houston, the facility combines a 400 MMcf per day withdrawal rate with approximately 18.6 Bcf of working gas storage capacity. This storage facility interconnects with the Katy Exchange providing connections to 14 intrastate and interstate pipeline systems, which includes most of the major interstate pipelines serving the upper Mid-West and Northeastern United States gas markets.
The Katy Hub and Natural Gas Storage Facility has evolved into a major component of the dynamic natural gas commodity trading market. As originally envisioned by NGSC, the facility is functioning as a versatile market center capable of providing a full range of short term and long term trading tools.
Bammel Field
eCORP's co-founder, John C. Thrash, P.E., while an officer at Houston Natural Gas Corporation, developed several large pipeline affiliated natural gas storage reservoirs. Shortly after Mr. Thrash joined Houston Natural Gas Corporation in 1965, he directed the company’s development of gas storage and production operations in the Bammel Field, a substantially depleted oil field located 16 miles north of downtown Houston.
Recognizing the field's significant storage potential, Mr. Thrash directed the development of a facility whose current storage capacity is 117 Bcf with peak day withdrawal rates of approximately 1.2 Bcf. Since its development, the Bammel Field has been recognized by the natural gas industry as a critical feature of the Gulf Coast Region’s energy infrastructure, providing both gas supply reliability and pipeline support.