Mississippi

There’s a horse race among Gulf Coast gas storage developers to provide the tens of billions of cubic feet of incremental space that will be needed by the early 2030s. Out front are the owners of existing salt cavern storage. But which brownfield projects have that special something? 

The Gulf Coast gas storage market today is a different animal, marked by steeper prices, an emphasis on high injection and withdrawal rates, and a looming capacity shortfall. How did we get here, which market players are shaping things the most, and how much new gas storage is likely to get built?

Just a few years ago, natural gas storage capacity along the Gulf Coast was widely available at low cost, but that has all changed. A storage-capacity shortfall is looming as new LNG export facilities come online, and the competition among storage developers is heating up. There will be winners and losers.

Natural gas demand is building fast along the Gulf Coast. New LNG export terminals, data centers and power generation — and new pipelines to deliver the incremental gas. That’s all baked in. What’s still far from certain is where all the gas will come from, and how intense the battle for gas supply will become.

We’ve blogged about rising demand for natural gas in the southeastern U.S. and the pipeline projects being planned there. But there’s more to the story — a bigger picture — namely, that gas consumers in the region increasingly find themselves competing for supply with LNG exporters.

All roads lead to Louisiana in the natural gas market, and those roads have become increasingly crowded as LNG demand sucks in gas from other states. Today, we discuss Boardwalk’s Kosci Junction project and how it will impact the gas market in Louisiana, Mississippi and beyond.

Data centers are a buzzy topic in the energy industry, and while there is still a lot of fuzziness about what will actually get built and how much natural-gas-fired power will be needed to support these projects, there’s no doubt that major technology companies are well along in planning a number of massive data centers across the country. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll offer a snapshot of the plans announced by tech giants Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet (Google) and Meta (Facebook). 

If all goes to plan, Texas’s isolated power grid will one day be connected to a pair of neighboring states via a massive transmission line called Southern Spirit. The project is designed to increase grid reliability, reduce blackouts and drive down energy bills, but it could be years before it becomes a reality. And while the transmission line will connect Texas with Louisiana and Mississippi, it is more akin to a drawbridge that can be raised or lowered as needed without subjecting the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid to federal oversight. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll discuss what the Southern Spirit transmission line would mean for Texas. 

When you’re in competition for billions in federal dollars, you need more than just a sensible approach and a strong economic case. You need a real competitive advantage. That’s what Hy Stor Energy believes it has with its proposed Mississippi Clean Hydrogen Hub (MCHH). It sees off-the-grid renewable power and extensive salt-dome storage capabilities as the surest path to decarbonization for a myriad of industrial needs. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the overall strategy behind the MCHH, the plan to produce 100% green hydrogen, and how Hy Stor hopes to beat the competition and secure Department of Energy (DOE) funding for a regional hydrogen hub.