The months-long leak of natural gas from a failed well at Southern California Gas Co.’s Aliso Canyon Storage Facility has caused officials at the California Energy Commission to reassess their views on the future reliability of natural gas supplies in Southern California.
The Aliso Canyon underground storage facility, one of the largest in the state, was created in 1972 in a depleted oil field. One of the 115 wells in the facility failed in late October of 2015, resulting in the release of about 100,000 tons of methane and ethane into the atmosphere before the well was killed in mid-February.
Many residents of the upscale Porter Ranch community nearby, affected by the mercaptan odorant added to natural gas as a safety measure, were relocated by the utility. SoCalGas also drew down the volume of gas stored at Aliso Canyon, to reduce the pressure on the leaking well.
The publication “Natural Gas Intelligence” reported that, as a result of the Aliso Canyon leak and its possible long-term impact on gas storage, officials at the Commission are reviewing the projections on natural gas supplies the agency released in November. They expect to complete their evaluation by April.
According to journalist Richard Nemec, the agency is “working on an update to the draft 2015 Natural Gas Outlook embodied in the latest iteration of the state’s Integrated Energy Policy Report.”
That draft had assumed that the supply of natural gas would remain relatively stable in coming years while the demand for natural gas would ease as gas-powered electrical generators were supplanted by solar and other renewable energy resources as well as increasing efficiency of appliances and machinery.
The last time the Commission reviewed natural gas storage capacity was in 2008; it concluded that the state would need additional storage facilities.
In the aftermath of the Aliso Canyon leak, some Porter Ranch residents and politicians have called for a shutdown of the Aliso Canyon storage facility.
That is seen as impractical, since the facility supplies 60% of the natural gas used by the utility’s 5.6 million residential customers, 215,000 business customers and 52 electric power plants.
In addition, there is limited pipeline capacity linking the Southern California region to large natural gas fields in the northern part of the state, making it difficult to bring in gas to offset a shutdown of Aliso Canyon.
“The whole L.A. area is dependent on one natural gas facility,” Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks), said at a news conference in February. “That’s why I can’t say shut it down.” But, he added, “I would say [SoCalGas has] a very heavy burden of proof” that the field will operate safely in the future.