Thank you Lanman for finding this article :)

http://www.magyarhirlap.hu/cikk.php?...

Gas storage defense.

Even in the coldest weather, the strategic facility guaranties supply protection.

By the end of the year, the construction of the 1.9 billion cubic meters capacity strategic gas storage facility in Szőreg will be complete, and then the era of gas blackmail will be history. In case of future supply disruption, the facility is capable to put 25 million cubic meters of gas daily into the network. Also by the end of the year, we should find out how much gas can we extract from the Makó trough.

Because of our gas dependence, we need to have the strategic gas storage (Fotó:Hegedüs Róbert)

According to the experts, this winter was the last time that we will be subjected to gas supply shortages due to disagreements between the Russian and Ukrainian gas transit partners. By the end of the year this facility not just only going to be finished, it also will be filled with gas to the full capacity. The storage safely can provide gas for 40 days.

E.ON already has 5 storage facility with 51 million cubic meters daily output if necessary, add to this the daily 25 million cubic meters output from the new facility, plus the imports we receive from the western suppliers, then we are approaching the daily 90 million cubic meters of gas output that can be pumped into the system. This amount is sufficient to cover the country’s needs even in the very cold weather of minus 20 Celsius.

The gas storage is an old depleted gas field, the gas surplus in the warmer months pumped underground into the depleted geological strata and it is stored there, of course, the pressure cannot be greater than as it was in the original gas field. Mol has numerous old gas fields that can be used for regional or European Union gas storage projects. The cost of the Szőreg storage was about 150 billion Forint ( Can$1 billion). Hungary is the most dependent on foreign gas energy supplies amongst the European Union member states. Therefore, this strategic gas storage will become Hungary’s bulletproof vest when the Russians and the Ukrainians are reverting to their annual gas war. Moscow and Kiev has no regards for the cold winter, and seemingly like to settle their differences in the dead of winter. This year we were lucky that we did not have the numbing cold weather of 3 years ago, when the Russians and the Ukrainians were fighting the same war. To maintenance of this bulletproof vest will add 1.5 Forint to the price of the gas, and it seems to be a small amount to pay when you consider it will help to eliminate the economical and political blackmail.

The domestic gas reserve can be increased by the amount of exploitable gas extracted by unconventional methods. With the traditional gas exploitation methods, you are extracting the gas that migrated near to the surface, and found in traps. However, in the Mako trough you have to drill deep into the source rock where the gas is still forming, ant then bring it to the surface.

According to the experts, by end of the year they will advance to the point when they can tell how much of the estimated 340 billion cubic meters of gas is recoverable. If this amount were economically recoverable, it would be a very significant development, in comparison, in the last 72 years 209 billion cubic meters of gas was extracted to date.

Szalontay Mihály