Centrica Expects Rough Storage to Operate 20 Wells

Centrica Storage now expects to return 20 wells to service for gas withdrawals at its troubled Rough offshore storage facility on November 1; UK gas prices for early 2017 eased as a consequence.

The company had said in mid-July that it was examining the feasibility of returning a number of wells to service for the winter 2016/2017 withdrawal season. Just before midday August 22, it announced it "has now concluded that it expects it can return 20 wells to service for withdrawal operations [but] is required to perform certain works in preparation for operating the wells."

Centrica Storage "anticipates that these works will be completed by November 1 2016 and the wells will therefore be available for withdrawal operations on November 1 2016, subject to normal operating conditions." It reminded customers at Rough that no wells are currently available for injection; it said in mid-July that none would be available for injection until spring 2017.

Rough is underfilled, as a result of no injection capacity having been available for much of the summer and into this autumn. It is the UK's biggest facility, a depleted gas field. Most other storage in the UK is formed from much smaller salt cavities, which allow much faster withdrawal rates and so are good for short-term trading opportunities. But they are not much use as a supply source for households over the course of a winter.

On August 4, the company issued the following graph, showing that with 20 depletion wells the existing Rough inventory could be depleted at rates of between 20 to 37mn m³/d over a period of 45 days. Normal depletion is over 57 days for Rough, when full.

Mark Smedley