The UK Government has provided licences for the expansion of gas storage in the Gateway Project, located in the East Irish Sea, under the new Energy Act.
The Gateway Storage Company will build 20 new salt caverns 750m beneath the surface of the seabed to store 1.5 billion standard cubic metres of gas, increasing the UK's total gas storage capacity by 30%.
The project is located 15 miles offshore, southwest of Barrow-in-Furness. Gateway plans to connect the facility to the National Gas Transmission System (NTS) to a gas compression station near the existing Morecambe gas terminals at Barrow.
The UK's gas market is able to meet seasonal and short-term peak in demand, and respond to price volatility with the gas storage capacity.
Until now, Centrica's Rough field has been the UK's only offshore gas storage facility and the largest single facility.
The Energy Act 2008 enables the Crown Estate to control rights to use geological structures beneath the seabed for gas storage.
The Gateway Storage Company's chairman George Grant said they are now fully engaged with the project's engineering design and are targeting 2014 to start commercial storage operations.
