12.03.10 Gas storage facility given approval
The UK’s gas storage facilities have just been given a massive boost by the government. It has just provided a licence for the construction of a natural gas storage facility under the Irish Sea that will cost in the region of £660 million.
The Gateway Project, as it is known, is being developed by Gateway Storage Company. The salt deposits under the sea are a perfect place in which to store natural gas, and once completed they will improve the UK’s gas storage capacity by an incredible 30%.
The actual storage facility will be made up of 20 vast caverns. Each of these will be built between 750 and 1,025 metres below the sea floor. Together they will have a combined storage capacity of 1.5 billion cubic metres.
The new facility will be situated about 15 miles from Barrow-in-Furness. Now that the licence has been granted it is expected that construction work will begin as early as this year. Commercial operations are billed to begin in 2014.
The main aim behind the new facility is to improve the flexibility of gas supplies, especially when prices go up or there is particularly high demand. The salt caverns are perfect for storing gas because they can withstand the incredibly high pressures that are generated.
The chairman of Gateway, George Furness, said that they were now “fully engaged with the project's engineering design and are targeting 2014 for the start of commercial storage operations."
With fears over the security of the UK’s gas supplies in the future, and the constant threat of gas being used as a political weapon by such countries as Russia, this is a positive move for gas supplies in the country.
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