Chemieanlagenbau Chemnitz GmbH (CAC; Germany; www.cac-chem.de) draws on its longstanding collaboration with Rohöl-Aufsuchungs AG (RAG; Vienna, Austria) and lands two new contracts for erecting underground storage facilities for natural gas. The one contract envisages the expansion of the existing Haidach underground storage facility, which was erected for RAG and successfully commissioned in July of 2007. With this second expansion phase, the storage facility in Haidach will have a storage volume of 2.4 billion Nm3, which corresponds to approximately 30% of Austria’s overall demand on natural gas per year. Thus, the largest natural gas underground storage facility is evolving in Austria and the second largest in Central Europe.
The second contract covers the construction of two new natural gas underground storage facilities with a storage volume of 450 million Nm3 and 705 million Nm3 in a first phase at two locations in Austria. With these underground storage facilities, depleted reservoirs will be given a new purpose and thus existing natural resources are made usable for the future.
Natural gas storage facilities are used to balance between constant gas supply and fluctuating consumption. To this end, the natural gas is withdrawn from the long distance gas mains during low-consumption periods and stored in the underground storage facility using gas compressors. With increasing demand, the natural gas can be withdrawn from the reservoir and supplied back to the long distance gas mains after reconditioning. The storage facilities make a significant contribution to uninterrupted supply and the structuring and safeguarding of the increasing demands for gas in Europe.
For these orders, CAC will perform authority engineering, basic and detail engineering, procurement of all supplies and services on behalf of the customer, erection quality control and commissioning. The design of the facilities must fulfill the highest requirements on quality, safety and environmental protection. The commissioning phase of all three projects is slated for first quarter of 2011.