Bacton Storage Company awards safety support contract to ESR Technology

Centrica Storage Limited and Perenco UK formed BSCL with the objective of storing natural gas offshore. BSCL is proposing to store natural gas in the existing Baird offshore reservoir, located in the Southern North Sea, some 86km from the North Norfolk coast. Once converted, the Baird gas field will be the UK’s second largest gas storage facility. The facility will have a capacity of approximately 60 billion cubic feet (bcf), just over half the 118-bcf capacity of Rough, the UK's largest gas storage facility, which is owned and operated by Centrica Storage Limited.

ESR Technology has been commissioned to provide a broad range of safety related services during the front-end engineering design (FEED) stage of the project including an inherent safety review, hazard identification study, hazard and operability study, onshore and offshore quantified risk assessments and a safety integrity level study.

Pre-development studies on the project will run until Q1 2010 before a final investment decision is made in Q3 2010. If a decision is made to progress, BSCL will lead the development of the project and operate the facility on completion.

“We are delighted to be working with BSCL on one of the UK’s premier gas storage projects,” said Neil Ketchell, ESR Technology’s General Manager for Oil and Gas Safety. “Gas storage is critical to managing the seasonal peaks and troughs of supply and demand in the UK and ESR Technology looks forward to bringing its long established expertise in safety and risk assessment to the project.”