Tres Palacios Gas Storage LLC has begun operations of its first of three salt caverns developed for use as a high performance natural gas storage and for hub services. This first cavern will provide up to 12 BCF of gas storage. Once the other two caverns have been completed, the working gas capacity of the facility will be 35.6 BCF.

The storage facility, located in Matagorda County, Texas is utilizing existing underground salt caverns on the Markham Dome. The current facility design is permitted for up to 48,000 HP of compression, providing customers commercial flexibility, with a maximum daily withdrawal rate of 2.5 Bcf and a maximum daily injection rate of 1 Bcf.

 

The header system inlcudes 41.72 miles of looped bi-directional pipeline and initially is connected to ten interstate and intrastate pipeline systems.

 

Given that the company is pipeline and market indifferent, Tres Palacios storage customers will have use of substantial pipeline header flexibility and interconnectivity within their storage rate.

 

As part of its FERC authorization, Tres Palacios has the authority to charge market-based rates for all proposed storage, park-and-loan, wheeling and other hub services. Tres Palacios is the first of two Texas independent storage operators to be fully regulated by the FERC.