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?