Weekly tracker shows Cook Inlet gas storage still filling, with no withdrawals

Southcentral Alaska's two commercial gas storage fields kept taking in gas and sending out none, as of Monday, Sept. 21. A new weekly chart from Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets puts the two fields at a combined 69.5% of design storage capacity. Injection ran at 22.7% of capacity. Withdrawal stood at zero.

The group broke the snapshot out by owner. Enstar's CINGSA field stood at 59.4% of capacity, with injection at 12.3% and no withdrawal. Hilcorp's HAGS field stood at 73.0%, with injection at 44.6% and no withdrawal. The group said it started the weekly chart because of concerns over Southcentral winter service. It draws on the public dashboards each operator maintains, along with the most recent aggregate dashboard from the Alaska Department of Natural Resources.

Storage matters in Southcentral because Cook Inlet production no longer covers the coldest days. Alaska News previously covered testimony that Enstar expects to fall 3 billion cubic feet short this winter. Producers told a joint legislative committee that Cook Inlet cannot cover regional demand past 2029. An earlier Alaska News article put the two fields at about 68% full, with roughly 16 billion cubic feet of space empty.

How much gas comes back out is the part utilities have flagged. Enstar president John Sims told a joint legislative hearing on Aug. 20 that last heating season brought large storage withdrawals. "So significantly more, 1.5 BCF almost was withdrawn from storage in the month of December alone," Sims said. "If you look at the month of March, uh, you can see almost another 1.5 BCF in the month of March alone."

CINGSA is Alaska's first commercial underground gas storage facility, with 13 billion cubic feet of capacity. State regulators are still reviewing three applications to build additional Cook Inlet storage, two from Hilcorp and one from Enstar.