Mountaineer NGL Storage LLC has concluded a successful nonbinding open season for its natural gas liquids (NGL) storage project near Clarington, OH, in Monroe County, noting requests for more than three times the amount of initial planned capacity.

The company now plans to offer up to 2 million bbl of initial storage capacity with more than 40,000 b/d of load-in and load-out. When it announced the open season in April, the company said it would offer up to 1.6 million bbl of storage with more than 25,000 b/d of load-in and load-out capacity (see Daily GPI, April 13).

Eleven days into the open season, Mountaineer Managing Director David Hooker said “it was very clear that there is a critical need for a natural gas liquids storage facility in the region.”

Hooker said this week that Mountaineer would begin the permitting process for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) storage and start 3-D seismic tests across the property along the Ohio River. The company also plans to drill a test well and core the Salina salt formation to ensure it is suitable for LPG storage.

Mountaineer plans to start construction early next year with a target in-service date of early 2018. The cavern would store ethane, propane, butane and y-grade products for gas processors, producers and commodity traders. Construction would occur in phases and eventually could have multiple storage caverns.

Caverns would be strategically located to service an expanding network of pipeline, rail, truck and barge infrastructure being built to transport Marcellus and Utica shale NGLs to multiple markets.

Mountaineer was formed in 2014 to develop and operate the storage project. It is backed by an investment fund managed by Goldman, Sachs & Co.