Rough (facility)

Rough is a former[1] natural gas storage facility situated off the east coast of England. In June 2017, Centrica Storage Ltd announced that gas injection and storage would cease.[2]

History

Easington gas terminal. From here the gas flow in and out of the Rough Field is managed.

Licences for the Rough Field were given in 1964. Gas was brought ashore to Easington gas processing terminal in 1975. In 1980 BG Corporation (which became British Gas plc in 1986 following privatisation) purchased the Rough field with one third of reserves depleted with the idea of converting the field into a gas storage facility to manage seasonal trends in the supply and demand of gas in the UK. In 1983 BG Corporation made the final decision to convert Rough into a natural gas storage facility. This would be the largest gas storage facility built in the UK continental shelf. In 1985 the Rough storage facility became operational.

The break up of BG Corporation in 1997 into BG Group and Centrica meant that BG Storage was created as a standalone business due to competition reasons. In 2001, BG Storage sold the Rough Facility to Dynegy. In 2002, Centrica bought the plant back from Dynergy for £304m during its period of near-bankruptcy. The purchase of Rough led to the Competition Commission requesting certain undertakings being put in place due to Centrica's control of the Morecambe Bay gas fields which at the time were providing 10–15% of the UK's gas supply. In 2003 Centrica provided DECC with a set of undertakings and Centrica Storage Ltd (a wholly owned subsidiary of Centrica Plc) was formed.

Centrica Storage Ltd still operates the Rough facility in accordance with the undertakings.

In June 2017, Centrica announced the closure of the Rough gas storage site due to safety concerns. The rundown of the plant will take up to four years to complete.[3]

Operation

The facility consists of a partially depleted gas field (the Rough field) in the Southern North Sea, approximately 18 miles off the east coast of Yorkshire, together with an onshore gas processing terminal at Easington, approximately 27 miles south east of Hull.

The Rough processing terminal forms a part of the larger Easington Gas Terminal which can inject upwards of 125 million cubic metres per day (approximately 40% of the daily UK supply).

The Rough facility is operated by Centrica Storage Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Centrica. Nearly 200 staff and contractors are employed within the operation, both onshore and offshore. It has a storage capacity of 3.31 billion cubic metres which is approximately 70% of the UK's gas storage capacity (approximately nine days' supply). Rough can supply 10% of the UK's peak gas demand and as such is an important part of the UK's gas infrastructure. Operational problems lead to a partial shutdown in 2016, requiring increased imports during winter.[4][3][5]

At the time of the announcement of the rundown of the facility in June 2017, Rough facility was the only depleted UK offshore gas field reservoir that is used for gas storage and retrieval.[6] Several projects have been developed to use other depleted offshore fields but none have proved to be economically viable. Two examples are the Baird and the Deborah Gas Storage projects.

See Also

References

  1. ↑ Ward, Andrew (20 June 2017). "Centrica to close UK's largest gas storage site". Financial Times. Retrieved 18 June 2018. (Subscription required (help)).
  2. ↑ "Cessation of Storage Operations at Rough". www.centrica.com. 20 June 2017. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  3. 1 2 Vaughan, Adam (20 June 2017). "Closure of UK's largest gas storage site 'could mean volatile prices'". The Guardian. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  4. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20160720175840/https://eandt.theiet.org/news/2016/jul/winter-gas-imports.cfm
  5. ↑ https://www.ft.com/content/564a1ec0-8288-11e7-a4ce-15b2513cb3ff
  6. ↑ "Rough to permanently close after safety concerns - BeondBeond". beondgroup.com. 20 June 2017. Retrieved 18 June 2018.

Coordinates: 53°39′37″N 0°06′50″E / 53.66028°N 0.11389°E / 53.66028; 0.11389

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