Centrica PLC increased gas storage capacity at Rough 18 miles off the coast of East Yorkshire in the North Sea. It will now be able to store up to 54 bcf of gas.
Rough stopped storing gas in 2017 but was re-opened for gas storage in October 2022. It now provides half of the UK’s total gas storage and is the UK’s largest gas storage site.
The UK has diverse gas supplies with connections with Norway and other European countries and three LNG import terminals. However, it still has some of the lowest levels of gas storage in Europe at 12 days average or 7.5 peak winter days, compared with Germany at 89 days, France at 103 days, and the Netherlands at 123 days. Rough will inject gas into storage when there is excess supply and return it into the UK’s gas network when required. The additional capacity means Rough can store up to 6 days of average UK gas use.
Centrica’s long-term plans are to invest £2 billion to repurpose Rough field into the world’s biggest methane and hydrogen storage site.
Alex Procyk | Upstream Editor
Alex Procyk is Upstream Editor at Oil & Gas Journal. He has also served as a principal technical professional at Halliburton and as a completion engineer at ConocoPhillips. He holds a BS in chemistry (1987) from Kent State University and a PhD in chemistry (1992) from Carnegie Mellon University. He is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE).