Renewable Power

Natural gas storage — especially well-sited storage with lightning-fast deliverability rates — is taking on a new significance (and value) as LNG export facilities and power generators seek to manage their often-volatile gas demand. But developing new gas storage capacity is costly and, with only a few exceptions, it’s hard to make an economic case for greenfield projects. That reality has spurred a lot of interest among midstream companies in acquiring existing storage assets and, where feasible, expanding that storage. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss one of the biggest storage-acquisition deals to date: Williams Companies’ recent purchase of six facilities with a combined working gas capacity of 115 Bcf in Louisiana and Mississippi. (It’s not all that Williams has been up to on the gas-storage front.) 

Hawaii’s electric and gas utilities plan to end their long-time reliance on oil and its by-products—gas on the islands is actually synthesized from naphtha—and to shift to LNG as their primary fossil fuel (in the case of Hawaiian Electric) or at least as a back-up fuel (in the case of Hawaii Gas). The key drivers are economy and environment, but there also has been a worry that one or both of Hawaii’s two oil refineries may shut down, leaving islanders “at sea” from a fuel-supply perspective. Today, we begin a look at the potentially rapid transition to LNG being planned in the Aloha state, and the significant challenges and costs involved in making the switch.