Hungary MOL brings emergency gas storage online

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Friday, October 2, 2009 09:49:00 AM

Hungarian oil and gas group MOL has completed the construction of its HUF 150 billion strategic natural gas storage and begun filling it up on Thursday.

The underground facility, converted from the mostly depleted Szőreg 1 gas reservoir, has a 1.9 billion cubic meter capacity, of which 1.2 billion will be used for emergency backup and another 700 million for commercial purposes.

The emergency storage is enough to supply Hungarian households and municipal consumers with natural gas for 45 days, at a peak capacity of 20 million cubic meters per day.

The facility cost HUF 150 bn, and is a joint venture between MOL, which owns 72.5% of the project, and the Hungarian Hydrocarbon Stockpiling Association, which has 27.5%.

The strategic storage will be filled up by 1 January 2010 and the commercial capacity is expected to be available from 1 April 2010, MOL said.

“The Szőreg 1 gas storage facility is strengthening MOL's position in the CEE gas market and helps stabilizing the CEE and SEE gas markets during the winter season. The completion of the project is in line with schedule thus we see little market reaction to the news," commented Lajos Mészáros, analyst at KBC Securities.

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