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Enron Mail |
I finally stumbled over something that forced me to get my shit together and
update my email addresses on you guys. Its been a strong couple of weeks for the merchant storage business! First you guys (and FERC) finally put the last nail in CNG and Penn Fuels' coffins on Tioga, then old Larry,John and Dill finally dust off Lodi and get going! Wow! I shouldn't have joined the evil empire quite so fast! Seriously, congratulations on starting construction up in PA. I ran into my old law partner Hill out in DC last week and got a great update on the recent battles against those drips at CNG and Penn Fuel. Siggy, what are you going to do without Carol Lynn to fight with????? Best wishes for continued success! DF ---------------------- Forwarded by Drew Fossum/ET&S/Enron on 02/29/2000 10:08 AM --------------------------- CA Merchant Storage Plant Passes Major Test California regulators Thursday released a final environmental impact report for the state's second merchant underground natural gas storage project in the Sacramento Valley of northern California. Absent new opposition from surrounding landowners, Texas-based Western Hub Properties hopes to have its $80 million storage project operating by the end of this year, following a year's delay in the approval process for environmental review. Western Hub is also pursuing a similar-sized underground storage project in Texas and it has identified a site for a second California storage operation in the Bakersfield area, according to Jim Fossum, Western's California operations manager. Final approval of the Lodi Gas Storage Project located south of Sacramento should come in May, Fossum said, meaning that construction could begin this summer and be operational before the end of the year. "We see the environmental report as the 'light at the end of the tunnel'," Fossum said. Under California's environmental review process (CEQA), the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) prepared a draft environmental report (EIR) identifying the project's environmental impacts and mitigation measures. The draft then was circulated to appropriate public agencies and the general public for comment before the final report can be issued. Three public hearings on the draft report were held by the CPUC last October. Under the CPUC's procedures, a proposed decision from the administrative law judge for the case is due by mid-March, after which there is a 30-day period before the project can come before the five-member commission for a final decision, a CPUC spokesperson said. "We hope to be on-line, and that is 'hope', this year because we already have our compressors and pipe, so it is just a matter of getting crews there and that can go pretty quickly," Fossum said. "In the best of all worlds it would be this year; in the worst case, it would be a year from now." Western Hub has some of its customers lined up, and it is in current discussions with others, said Fossum, declining for competitive reasons to even identify the types of customers, although they are expected to be large shippers, marketers, power plant operators and other large industrial customers. The Lodi project is designed for full operation as having a 12 Bcf working capacity, with 400 MMcf/d injection and 500 MMcf/d withdrawal capacities. It will be connected to Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s backbone transmission system through a 35-mile pipeline consisting of three miles of 30-inch-diameter and 32 miles of 24-inch-diameter pipe. During the past year's delay in start-up, Western has "moved the pipeline around a bit, but not a whole lot," Fossum said. "to make accommodations to nearby farmers." Western Hub's similar-sized Texas project is south of San Antonio and would be connected with three natural gas transmission systems in the area: Houston Pipeline, PG&E --- Texas (bought recently by El Paso) and the City of San Antonio. "We expect to have it on-line the same time as Lodi," Fossum said. Fossum said Western is "moving ahead" with a second California site in the Bakersfield area, but he declined to give any further details, noting Western Hub expects to have more definitive information next month. He did say that if a second California project moves ahead, Western expects to have it operational by early 2002. Unlike northern California, storage in the Bakersfield area would not have to connect with the local utility transmission system of Southern California Gas. The combined Kern River/ Mojave interstate pipeline also comes into the area.
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