NGL storage project planned in Ohio River Valley

Mountaineer NGL Storage LLC, based in Denver, plans to develop bulk natural gas liquids (NGL) storage caverns in the Salina-bedded salt formation of the Ohio River Valley, near Clarington, Ohio.

Mountaineer NGL Storage formed as a privately held energy company in 2014 to develop, own and operate the Mountaineer NGL Storage Project – a component of midstream infrastructure in the Utica and Marcellus shale plays.

According to Mountaineer NGL Storage, the Salina salt formation in the Ohio River Valley is located about 6,300 to 6,700 ft. below the surface. The salt formation has been used for NGL storage in other parts of the United States, the company notes.

“We’ll begin the permitting process for [LP gas] storage, initiating a 3-D seismic shoot over the property, drilling a test well and coring the salt to confirm its suitability for [LP gas] storage,” says David Hooker, managing director of Mountaineer NGL Storage, in a May company statement.

The project will store propane, butane, ethane and Y-grade products for a growing number of gas processors, producers, markets and commodity traders interested in exploring the wet gas production from the Marcellus and Utica shales.

The project plans to offer up to 2 million barrels of initial storage capacity, with more than 40,000 barrels per day of load-in and load-out. The second phase will include another 2 million barrels of storage capacity, project officials say. The project is expected to have truck and rail load-out facilities initially, with future designs for pipeline and river barge transport.

The storage project should break ground in early 2017, with a planned in-service date of early 2018, Hooker adds.

A nonbinding open season for the storage project earlier this year resulted in requests for more than three times the amount of initial planned capacity, the company says.

“We’re pleased to see that the support of this project in the heart of the Marcellus and Utica wet gas shale play is as strong as it is,” Hooker says. “The Mountaineer NGL Storage Project is strategically placed to provide service to the expanding network of pipelines, rail, truck and barge infrastructure that is currently being built to transport Marcellus and Utica [NGLs] throughout the Northeast and mid-Atlantic.”