Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), a California-based gas and electric utility, has put up its Pleasant Creek natural gas storage field in Yolo County, California, for sale.

The Pleasant Creek storage field is partly located in the city of Winters and also in Yolo County. It was discovered by a previous owner and was operated as a natural gas production field from 1948 to 1958.

PG&E acquired the Pleasant Creek gas field in 1958 and started operating it as a natural gas storage field two years later.

The natural gas storage field, which is the smallest of four underground natural gas storage fields, that are owned by PG&E, has a natural gas inventory capacity of 2.3 billion cubic feet (Bcf).

The storage field comprises about 400 acres of land, an additional 2,167 acres of subsurface rights. It contains six injection and withdrawal wells, compression and processing facilities along with pipeline infrastructure for connecting the Pleasant Creek gas field to the gas transmission system of PG&E.

The Pleasant Creek field makes up nearly 2% of the total storage inventory capacity of PG&E. The gas and electric utility said that the sale of the natural gas storage field will enable ratepayers to avoid costs pertaining to decommissioning and remediation.

The company said that in the event of a sale, it will not be decommissioning the facility.

PG&E stated: “Several factors led PG&E to a determination that the Pleasant Creek field is no longer a necessary asset for providing safe, reliable natural gas service to customers, including PG&E’s assessment of future gas demand and the existence of ample storage capacity at PG&E’s other gas storage fields.

“In its 2019 Gas Transmission and Storage (GT&S) Rate Case at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), PG&E proposed a reliability-focused storage service strategy, which was approved. This proposal included the sale or decommissioning of the Pleasant Creek field.”

PG&E also stated that the proposed sale is not because of bankruptcy, from which it had emerged in July 2020.

  California, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Pleasant Creek gas storage field, USA