Over the summer, operators of gas storage facilities typically build up inventories – but this year inventories in Southern California remain relatively flat. High gas-burn and slightly lower natural gas production have even led to a rare summer net withdrawal from storage.
Though withdrawals in the summer happen regularly in the South Central storage region, the last time a net withdrawal in July occurred on a national basis was in summer 2006. The South Central region of the US is increasingly reliant on gas-fired generation which can cause bottlenecks during a heat wave.
SoCalGas is also still struggling to come to grips with the months of leak at its Aliso Cayon facility which accounts for 86 Bcf of SoCalGas's total capacity of 135 Bcf. After the leak, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) ordered that Aliso Canyon inventory levels be reduced to 15 Bcf. Prior to the leak, Aliso Canyon had a sendout capacity of up to 1.9 Bcf/d. Two other SoCalGas storage fields have a combined sendout capacity of 1.4 Bcf/d, but are farther away or not well connected to the L.A. Loop.
Rare summer net withdrawal
Analyst at the EIA said net injections had already been much lower than the previous five-year average for almost every week.
A rare summer net withdrawal of 6 Bcf was recorded for the week ending July 29 – driven by record high power burn, and slightly lower natural gas production, which has recently fallen below year-ago levels.
Following a warm 2015–16 winter, inventories headed into the injection season at high levels; so despite lower injections, inventories are still substantially higher than the five-year average In natural gas markets, the storage injection season typically runs from April 1 through October 31 of each year.