Natural gas was sent to AGL’s Newcastle Gas Storage Facility for the first time at the beginning of April, marking the start of the commissioning phase.
The first gas follows 950 days of construction and AGL is on-track to deliver the fully operational $310 million gas storage facility by mid-2015, the company said in a statement.
Located at Tomago, the NGSF will enhance gas security of supply in the Newcastle/Hunter region. The 1.5-petajoule LNG storage tank will be used to support local gas supplies during times of peak demand and provide, if there was a major interruption to NSW gas supplies, the storage capability for up to two weeks of gas for the Greater Newcastle region.
Last year, the massive 450-tonne dome of the facility’s storage tank was raised from the ground to its final height of 40 metres.
In addition to the arrival of gas, the NGSF project team has achieved more than one million man-hours without a lost-time injury.
AGL’s NGSF Construction Project Manager, Tim Knill , said, “We will initially commission the flare, fuel gas and pre-treatment systems before moving on to the liquefaction system.”
The official opening of the NGSF is expected to be in June 2015.
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Image: AGL