Centrica to end storage operations at Rough gas facility

British Gas parent Centrica said on Tuesday that its subsidiary, Centrica Storage Limited, is planning to end storage operations at its Rough gas facility.

Back in April, the company announced that it was assessing the future for Rough's commercial operations. It has now completed the wells testing programme and has analysed the results.

"CSL has also completed a review into the feasibility of returning Rough to injection and storage operations and concluded that, as a result of the high operating pressures involved, and the fact that the wells and facilities are at the end of their design life and have suffered a number of different failure modes while testing, CSL cannot safely return the assets and facilities to injection and storage operations."

Centrica said an assessment of both the economics of seasonal storage today and the costs of refurbishment or rebuilding the facility and replacing the wells suggests that both pathways would not be economic.

CSL intends to make all relevant applications to permanently end Rough’s status as a storage facility, and to produce all recoverable cushion gas from the field, which is estimated at 183 billion cubic feet.

At 0910 BST, Centrica shares were up 0.2% to 202.80p.