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The Government is expected to duck one of the key energy issues facing industry next month by failing to set out ways to boost Britain?s gas storage capacity, The Times has learnt.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/b ... 723006.ece

(Thanks to TOD for this)

When it comes to energy the current PTB are short on plans, well they would be. Bunch of namby pamby lawyers aren't they...

It would be funny if it wasn't so serious. As far as I remember, UK uses more gas than any other country in Europe.

Russian gas and European energy security

Funny thing is, as well as using more gas, we probably have more storage space than the rest of Europe as well. We have all those empty gas wells. Why can't we put some of it back where it came from?

clv101 wrote:
It would be funny if it wasn't so serious. As far as I remember, UK uses more gas than any other country in Europe.

Russian gas and European energy security

Doing some quick calculations with the 2004 gas consumption stats from the BP energy review, if this graphic were to show billion cubic meters of storage per bcm of annual consumption in the same year, the listing would be:

Slovakia: Top dogs with 0.46 bcm of storage per bcma of demand
Austria: 0.29
Czech Rep: 0.29
Hungary: 0.27
France: 0.25
Germany: 0.22
Denmark: 0.17
Italy: 0.17
Poland: 0.14
Spain: 0.08
Netherlands: 0.06
UK: Bottom with 0.04

Can't find the Latvian annual consumption for 2004, but with 4 bcm of storage they could easily top this table!

Some interesting pdfs of maps of European gas storage facilities (and other stuff) is downloadable from the Gas Infrastructure Europe site. Click on "maps & data" from the front page, then on "storage data" on the following page. The working gas volume from Rough storage is missing from the UK table though.

kenneal wrote:Funny thing is, as well as using more gas, we probably have more storage space than the rest of Europe as well. We have all those empty gas wells. Why can't we put some of it back where it came from?

The storage space is there. But where would you get the gas from to inject back in there?

The storage space is there. But where would you get the gas from to inject back in there?

If we can't get the gas, why do we need the storage?

Instead of taking the gas out and then putting it back, why don't we import a base level of gas and just take out the occasional extra we need from the North Sea? It would save a fortune in building/modifying storage structures and would mean our gas would last longer. Simplistic, I know, but....

We would have to reduce our consumption on a yearly basis to match depletion, but our gas would become more valuable. We probably can't do it because, unlike the Russians, Saudis, soon the Venezuelans and others, we don't own or control our petroleum assets. International oil companies do.

kenneal wrote:Instead of taking the gas out and then putting it back, why don't we import a base level of gas and just take out the occasional extra we need from the North Sea?

I expect that the gas extraction companies which own the expensive infrastructure, which they were expecting to fund by selling gas, might have some problems with this strategy,


Peter.

Blue Peter wrote:

kenneal wrote:Instead of taking the gas out and then putting it back, why don't we import a base level of gas and just take out the occasional extra we need from the North Sea?

I expect that the gas extraction companies which own the expensive infrastructure, which they were expecting to fund by selling gas, might have some problems with this strategy,


Peter.

I think you're right Peter.

Gas storage covers the swing of seasonal demand. It makes economic sense if you can inject cheaply over the summer months and then draw out more gas later in the winter, either to cover your extra demand or to sell at a higher price to other shippers who are short. It also apparently makes economic sense for upstream producers to extract gas at a more or less uniform rate, rather than pipe shedloads of gas in the winter then close down to a trickle in the summer.

Until now, with healthy amounts of gas being piped in continually from the North Sea, it seems the UK's storage facilities have been sufficient to cover seasonal swing. As North Sea gas deliveries decline though, it would appear to make more sense (to some people) to increase gas storage capacity, but it really depends on how the UK supply profile takes shape in the future - I imagine there will be more LNG plants so a lot of the future storage will be as LNG in tanks before regasification.

However, if it's a long term "strategic reserve" reserve of gas thats required (rather than a mere lung for facilitating seasonal swing) then the best thing to do would be to leave the gas in the fields where it is now, and stop consuming it! Somehow I can't see this happening. Old gas and oil fields can and are used as storage facilities, but I can't see such fields becoming strategic reserves, with say a year's worth of gas kept aside "just in case".

Anyway, if the truth is staring at us in the face that sooner or later we're going to have to get by with a lot less gas, then does it really make sense to be investing in natural gas storage infrastructure as opposed to say in renewables or in improved insulation for housing?

"IEA gives warning of global gas shortage"
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/ ... 510922.ece

The world's leading energy watchdog has warned of a looming global gas shortage unless more money is poured into investment.

The Paris-based International Energy Agency said the fuel would take a more dominant role over the next decade and supply must be expanded to match it. It said that while consuming countries could consider building up emergency stocks, this would not be "a silver bullet".

Same old line, not enough investment. Like more money will magically create more gas.

The warnings seem to be coming thick and fast at the minute, eh.

More than a year has gone by since the last post in this thread, and the news is...

A lack of adequate gas storage has left Britain's energy market like a “house of cards”, more vulnerable to supply shocks than any other country in Western Europe, according to a leading energy analyst.

...that nothing has changed.

Erik wrote:More than a year has gone by since the last post in this thread, and the news is...

A lack of adequate gas storage has left Britain's energy market like a “house of cards”, more vulnerable to supply shocks than any other country in Western Europe, according to a leading energy analyst.

...that nothing has changed.

The arrticle exaggerates somewhat. We have an ever increasing range of options available to get gas, including but not limited to an ever increasing amount of gas storage capacity. There's nothing to suggest that the Government could provide more, or quicker, than the market is already doing. And the market could do it quicker still if the planning system could be sorted as the Government's trying to do.

Neither is gas storage capacity the only measure of supply security. Certainly, we don't have as much gas storage capacity as they do in Germany. But then, we're not dependent on one pipeline from Russia for 25% of our gas supply like they are either, and neither do we have a demand side that is totally blind and unresponsive to market signals like theirs is.

Wingas, a joint German/Gazprom venture, wants to build a storage facility in my neck of the woods. This article dates from June 2007:

MOSCOW, June 14 (Reuters) - German-Russian joint gas venture Wingas has had to delay the opening of its 700 billion cubic metre Saltfleetby gas storage facility in Britain due to a bureaucratic obstacle, its chairman said on Thursday.

"I'm afraid that the project will be delayed by a year or two from 2008," Rainer Seele told reporters in Moscow.

"It's a bureaucratic obstacle. It has nothing to do with politics. Our documents were sent back to us a couple of months ago and we now have to do all the paperwork again.

"It ... makes us uncertain how the authorities will behave towards the project... It would be very helpful if Britain had specific legislation covering storage activities, like we have in Germany."

Another official, who declined to be named, said the hold-up was the result of a local government decision.

"But anyway it will be loss-making for our business because we have been planning to sell more gas in the UK," the official said.

Wingas, which is continental Europe's number three gas storage operator, is a subsidiary of Wintershall, the oil and gas arm of German chemicals group BASF (BASF.DE: Quote, Profile, Research), in partnership with Russian gas monopoly Gazprom (GAZP.MM: Quote, Profile, Research).

Gazprom has 35 percent of the venture but expects to raise it to 50 percent in the near future.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/UK_SMALLC ... 8120070614

Our local Tory MP, Peter Tapsell, is against it, as are most of the locals and some sad folk on East Lindsey District Council.

Some background here
and here.

Currently, a rig is on site, drilling sideways to get at the remaining gas and, presumably, to provide access for pumping gas down when the storage part of the operation is eventually allowed.

These gas scares occur every year, and so far at least nothing much has happened.
I, for one have previosly predicted power cuts due to lack of gas to fuel generating plant, and again nothing much has happened yet*

However it could be argued that the risks increae each year because every year we import a greater percentage of our gas. Doubt remain as to the reliability of Russia a gas supplier, our nuclear plants are ageing and become even less reliable, potentialy increasing gas demand.

We have had a run of mild winters, any return of tradditional winter weather could be problematic.

On the other hand demand destruction due to rising prices will help a bit, as will the increased use of wind power.

*Power cuts have of course occured, including a few big ones, but these have been due to breakdowns and failures, not a general fuel shortage.