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AGL Resources continues to build on its existing reputation as one of the nation's most efficient operators of natural gas distribution systems. By consistently providing economical and reliable service to our customers, AGL Resources serves all of our stakeholders: customers, regulators, communities, employees and shareholders. It's what we do best.
Positioned to become one of the nation's preeminent distributors of natural gas, our business segments consist of natural gas distribution operations, wholesale services and energy investments. We are traded publicly on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker symbol AGL.
Distribution Operations
Our six utility companies provide local gas distribution to approximately 2.3 million customers in Georgia, New Jersey, Virginia, Florida, Tennessee and Maryland. Get details about our utilities >
Retail Energy Operations
AGL Resources retail energy operations segment brings together the expertise of a national supplier with the local knowledge and understanding of a regional provider. Value-minded customers rely on retail operations for dependable, competitively priced natural gas service. Learn more about our partnership in SouthStar Energy Services >
Wholesale Services
Through our wholly owned subsidiary, Sequent Energy Management, we deliver smarter ways to manage assets, gain access to natural gas resources, and optimize energy systems for our customers. Learn more >
Energy Investments
AGL Resources supports its core business of delivering natural gas by investing in related companies ranging from pipeline operators to salt cavern storage facilities to retail services. Learn more about Golden Triangle Storage and Jefferson Island Storage & Hub >
Energy Services
The AGL Energy Services program provides clients with demand-side solutions that enable them to use energy more efficiently and supply-side solutions that facilitate increased use of green energy sources. The AGL Energy Services program teams up with government agencies (including the military), schools, hospitals, and large commercial and industrial clients throughout to provide utility-related efficiency and enhancement programs that pay for themselves over time. Learn more about AGL Energy Services >
Supplier Diversity
AGL Resources believes that all suppliers should have the opportunity to grow their business, to experience success, and achieve their dreams. AGL Resources would like to offer diverse businesses the opportunity to do just that. Learn more >
Liquefied Natural Gas
Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plays an important role in AGL Resources' strategy to serve customer demands. AGL Resources owns and operates four LNG peak-shaving facilities.
AGL Resources' core business is delivering environmentally friendly natural gas to the company's 2.3 million customers through its six utilities. With its signature service, AGL Resources is committed to excellence in customer relations.
Here is an overview of the company's six utilities:
Atlanta Gas Light | Chattanooga Gas | Elizabethtown Gas | Elkton Gas | Florida City Gas | Virginia Natural Gas
Atlanta Gas Light
Founded: 1856
Headquarters: Atlanta
President: Suzanne Sitherwood
Number of Customers: 1.55 million
Number of Communities Served: 237 throughout the state of Georgia
Web Address: http://www.atlantagaslight.com
Atlanta Gas Light is the largest natural gas distributor in the Southeast. It provides delivery service to approximately 1.55 million residential, commercial and industrial customers in Georgia.
The natural gas market in Georgia is deregulated. Natural gas marketers compete to provide natural gas services to customers, creating a competitive market for the best in pricing and service plans. The marketers arrange the buying and selling of natural gas to residential and commercial customers, execute billing and oversee related customer service needs.
Atlanta Gas Light's role in Georgia's deregulated environment includes:
Distributing natural gas for the marketers
Maintaining the gas system infrastructure, including responding to gas leaks
Performing meter reading for the marketers
Ensuring the safe, reliable delivery of natural gas to Georgia customers
Offering online customer information about natural gas and gas-fueled products
Atlanta Gas Light is also very active in our communities, donating to energy assistance programs, contributing to nonprofit agencies, and supporting our employees' continuing volunteer efforts throughout the state.
AGL Resources retail energy operations segment brings together the expertise of a national supplier with the local knowledge and understanding of a regional provider. Value-minded customers rely on retail operations for dependable, competitively priced natural gas service.
Southstar Energy Services
Year Established: 1998
Headquarters: Atlanta
President, SouthStar Energy Services LLC: Michael A. Braswell
Web Address: http://www.southstarenergy.com
Through our partnership in SouthStar Energy Services LLC, a multistate full-service provider of natural gas supply, transportation and related services, we serve more than half a million residential, small business, large commercial, and industrial customers in several states. AGL Resources holds an 85-percent owner stake in the South Star joint venture.
Sequent Energy Management is the company's Houston-based subsidiary primarily involved in asset optimization and energy marketing and trading.
Sequent Energy Management provides customers throughout North America smart and proven ways to optimize energy programs and increase cost effectiveness from wellhead to burner-tip. Sequent offers the ideal solution for large energy users looking to outsource their asset management activities.
Sequent serves the needs of utilities, marketers, retail aggregators municipalities and and large industrial customers in the United States, Sequent focuses primarily on asset management and the wholesale marketing, trading, storage and transportation of natural gas.
Sequent currently is ranked by Platts Gas Daily magazine as the 15th-largest wholesale gas marketer in North America.
Compass Energy Services
In 2007, AGL Resources acquired Compass Energy Services, Inc., a Richmond-based commercial and industrial energy services company. Compass Energy Services' mission is to provide value-added energy commodity supplies and energy procurement consulting services to commercial adn industrial customers by utilizing superior industry expertise and outstanding customer service
We know energy … we provide solutions” summarizes our promise to our clients. It’s the legacy of a business whose roots can be traced back to the 1850s.
The AGL Energy Services program offers an array of demand-side and supply-side solutions that enable our clients to optimize their use of utilities such as natural gas, electricity, water and sewer -- and that pay for themselves over time.
Here are a few ways that the AGL Energy Services program can help you reach your energy and environmental goals:
Alternative and Renewable Energy
The AGL Energy Services program has the experience and resources to provide turnkey solutions that allow clients to implement and enhance energy-producing assets using a broad range of fuels including solar, bio-mass, landfill gas, and combined heat and power (CHP).
Design/Build Construction
The AGL Energy Services program provides clients with turnkey design/build services that incorporate the expertise of mechanical, lighting, water conservation, sustainability, engineering and construction companies. With the ability to handle all aspects of a project from concept to completion, the AGL Energy Services program applies the appropriate resources to fulfill our clients’ project requirements in a cost-effective way.
Environmentally Friendly and Energy-Efficient Design
The AGL Energy Services program is committed to sustainability, and each of our projects is designed to incorporate the most energy-efficient and environmentally friendly design possible. In addition, we analyze the life-cycle cost of each technology option to ensure that our clients receive a solution that optimizes financial savings as well as energy use.
Financing
As a program of AGL Resources, AGL Energy Services is positioned to facilitate project funding arrangements with equity, debt and other financial partners.
Operations and Maintenance
Solutions designed and installed by the AGL Energy Solutions program often reap immediate energy and cost savings for our clients. In the longer term, the installation of energy-efficient equipment also offers clients quantifiable O&M savings.
Performance Contracting
The AGL Energy Services program offers performance contracting to those clients who are looking for equipment retrofit solutions that offer cost savings that pay for the project during the life of the contract and create excess savings that can be applied to future needs.
Supplier Diversity Program
The AGL Resources Supplier Diversity program develops relationships with and increases opportunities for diverse suppliers that provide quality, competitive prices and services. We believe supplier diversity makes good business sense.
Our supplier diversity policy is to help diverse suppliers develop their businesses in order to maximize their opportunities to do business with us. All AGL Resources buyers are encouraged to consider direct contracts and to recommend that our prime suppliers provide subcontracting opportunities to diverse suppliers.
John W. Somerhalder II
Chairman, President and
Chief Executive Officer
Second Tier Program
AGL Resources strongly encourages its prime suppliers to provide meaningful contracting opportunities to firms owned by minorities and women. Because we understand the value added by the development of diverse businesses, we promote supplier diversity throughout our existing supply base.
We consider second-tier supplier diversity (subcontracting) by our prime suppliers to be an important component of our Supplier Diversity Program. AGL Resources evaluates supplier diversity is its RFP decision matrix, and we ask that our prime suppliers participate in our Supplier Diversity Program (including reporting on supplier diversity efforts).
We require our prime suppliers to report their purchases with diverse suppliers via our quarterly reporting form. Primary suppliers participating in the AGL Resources second-tier program are asked to please report their quarterly spending with diverse suppliers by completing a reporting form.
Supplier Database
AGL Resources employees who make and/or influence purchasing decisions have access to a supplier database that contains contact information for businesses nationwide. This supplier database enables employees to search by product/service, company name or business classification, which helps us identify businesses to include in RFPs/RFQs/RFIs.
In order for your business to be pre-approved to compete for procurement opportunities, your company’s information must be submitted online via our registration/pre-approval form. (Please note: Providing the requested information about your company does not guarantee a contract and/or procurement opportunity.)
Supplier Connections
We are committed to developing our suppliers. Registered suppliers have access to information, purchasing employees and overall business development opportunities through in-house tradeshows, newsletters and other activities. Supplier Connections will also help suppliers develop strategic relationships with employees who make purchasing decisions at AGL Resources and with first- and second-tier suppliers.
iquefied Natural Gas
AGL Resources' LNG facilities
Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plays an important role in AGL Resources' strategy to meet the growing demand for safe, reliable natural gas in the states served by its utilities. AGL Resources owns and operates four LNG peak-shaving facilities, which supply gas at peak use times.
The largest, the Riverdale LNG plant in Riverdale, Ga., has storage capacity of 31,080,000 gallons or 2,560,000 million cubic feet (Mcf) of natural gas in its two tanks. Located south of Atlanta, the plant is supplied by two interstate pipelines for supply. It is connected to the Atlanta Gas Light (AGL) beltline pipeline system for distribution of gas to the Atlanta market. The plant is able to deliver 400,000 Mcf/day of gas during peak send-out.
The Cherokee LNG plant, located north of Atlanta in Ball Ground, Ga., has storage capacity of 25,242,957 gallons or 2,020,237 Mcf equivalent of natural gas in a single tank. The 934-acre site was designed to accommodate a second tank of equal capacity if warranted. This plant receives supply from three pipelines and can deliver an equivalent of 400,000 Mcf/day of peak send-out to AGL's Atlanta market.
AGL Resources also owns and operates an LNG plant in Macon, Ga. This plant's single tank storage capacity is 18,900,000 gallons or the equivalent of 1,501,983 Mcf. Although the plant is capable of delivering up to 150,000 Mcf/day, the pipeline system exiting the plant can accommodate a delivery of less than half that volume, of only 70,000 Mcf/day. Several options to capitalize on this plant's capabilities more effectively are under consideration.
In Tennessee, Chattanooga Gas, another AGL Resources subsidiary, receives peak day supplies from the company’s Chattanooga plant, which holds the equivalent of 1,186,035 Mcf. This facility is supplied by two pipelines and can deliver up to 90,000 Mcf/day to the Chattanooga Gas market.
AGL Resources, through Virginia Natural Gas (VNG), also owns some storage capacity — 752,174 Mcf equivalent — in the Columbia Natural Gas Company-operated Chesapeake LNG facility. This plant is located at the end of the Columbia pipeline that supplies VNG’s south system. To more fully utilize this contracted capacity, VNG constructed a LNG vaporization plant adjacent to its propane plant in 2002. This system is capable of adding up to 14,400 Mcf/day into the VNG system by trucking LNG from the Chesapeake plant to the vaporization plant.
About LNG
LNG is natural gas that has been cooled to about minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit for storage as a liquid. LNG is more compact than its gaseous equivalent with a volumetric difference of approximately 600 to 1. This difference in volume allows AGL Resources to store a large quantity of natural gas in a relatively compact storage space.
Most LNG storage facilities in the United States were constructed solely for use by local utilities. Storage facilities in utilities' service areas often hold LNG for an extended period of time to meet peak demand periods.
LNG facilities offer several advantages over alternative storage options such as depleted reservoirs, aquifers and salt caverns. Above-ground storage tanks give companies more flexibility in locating LNG facilities where they are needed.
LNG peak-shaving plants are also more economical to build than new, larger and longer pipelines. LNG plant construction costs average $54/Dth (dekatherm); expanding a pipeline cost much more, an average of $232/Dth.
LNG facilities are often constructed with a higher degree of "deliverability" (the amount of gas the facility can send out under peak conditions relative to inventory) than traditional underground storage facilities. LNG accounts for only a small portion of working gas in storage, but it often represents a significant part of a company's supply portfolio for peak days.
LNG Marine Terminals
LNG has been imported into the United States for more than three decades. Because of high natural gas prices in the 1970s, some companies anticipated large profits and constructed four U.S. LNG receiving terminals. Dreams of high profits never materialized, however, and all but one of the four were mothballed.
The Everett, Mass., LNG marine terminal remained in operation only because it was located in a market center where demand was high and the cost of bringing in conventional natural gas supplies by pipeline exceeded the cost of LNG. In 1989, the Lake Charles, La., facility was reactivated, mainly to receive spot cargoes.
As a result of high natural gas prices experienced in the winter of 2000-2001 and the growing demand for natural gas, the other two facilities — at Elba Island, Ga., and Cove Point, Md. — also have reopened.
AGL Resources owns a combined 790,000 Dth of capacity at Cove Point and is able to capitalize on its pipeline capacity out of Elba Island to move gas on an interruptible basis. While the industry has experienced periods of both high growth and prolonged downturns, recent natural gas prices have caused many analysts to predict that imported LNG may provide a much larger share of the U.S. natural gas supply.
Propane
Propane-air storage is also a common choice for utilities to meet their short-term peak demand energy needs. However, unlike LNG, propane is not pipeline quality gas. It must be blended or mixed into a flowing gas stream.
One advantage of propane-air plants is their ability to be refilled via supplies that are trucked in. A pipeline is not needed. In times of critical need and without other cost-effective options, propane-air plants can be a valuable supply option.
AGL Resources owns and operates three propane-air plants. The south plant in the Virginia Natural Gas system is capable of supplementing up to 28,800 Mcf/day equivalent into the system. This plant has storage capacity of 185,586 Mcf equivalent.
Another valuable option for the VNG system is its north plant, which has storage capacity of 160,000 Mcf equivalent and send-out capability of up to 14,400 Mcf/day.
When necessary, propane can be trucked from one plant to the other so the company can avoid purchasing additional supply when prices are high. Atlanta Gas Light’s Valdosta propane plant in Georgia is capable of storing up to 7,022 Mcf equivalent and supplementing the Valdosta distribution system with 3,600 Mcf/day.
The estimated total capacity of LNG storage facilities in the lower 48 states as of mid-2001 (excluding marine facility storage) was 86 billion cubic feet (Bcf). AGL Resources' storage capacity accounts for more than 8 Bcf or more than nine percent of that total. The 7.3 Bcf of AGL-operated storage also comprises 33 percent of the existing LNG storage in the Southeast.
In addition, AGL Resources owns two portable vaporization units that can be transported to any location in AGL's system. When coupled with tractor-trailer LNG tankers, these units can supplement the utility's pipeline system. This service is critical to avoid loss of service to customers in times of peak demand.
AGL Resources continues to build on its existing reputation as one of the nation's most efficient operators of natural gas distribution systems. By consistently providing economical and reliable service to our customers, AGL Resources serves all of our stakeholders: customers, regulators, communities, employees and shareholders. It's what we do best.
Positioned to become one of the nation's preeminent distributors of natural gas, our business segments consist of natural gas distribution operations, wholesale services and energy investments. We are traded publicly on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker symbol AGL.
Distribution Operations
Our six utility companies provide local gas distribution to approximately 2.3 million customers in Georgia, New Jersey, Virginia, Florida, Tennessee and Maryland. Get details about our utilities >
Retail Energy Operations
AGL Resources retail energy operations segment brings together the expertise of a national supplier with the local knowledge and understanding of a regional provider. Value-minded customers rely on retail operations for dependable, competitively priced natural gas service. Learn more about our partnership in SouthStar Energy Services >
Wholesale Services
Through our wholly owned subsidiary, Sequent Energy Management, we deliver smarter ways to manage assets, gain access to natural gas resources, and optimize energy systems for our customers. Learn more >
Energy Investments
AGL Resources supports its core business of delivering natural gas by investing in related companies ranging from pipeline operators to salt cavern storage facilities to retail services. Learn more about Golden Triangle Storage and Jefferson Island Storage & Hub >
Energy Services
The AGL Energy Services program provides clients with demand-side solutions that enable them to use energy more efficiently and supply-side solutions that facilitate increased use of green energy sources. The AGL Energy Services program teams up with government agencies (including the military), schools, hospitals, and large commercial and industrial clients throughout to provide utility-related efficiency and enhancement programs that pay for themselves over time. Learn more about AGL Energy Services >
Supplier Diversity
AGL Resources believes that all suppliers should have the opportunity to grow their business, to experience success, and achieve their dreams. AGL Resources would like to offer diverse businesses the opportunity to do just that. Learn more >
Liquefied Natural Gas
Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plays an important role in AGL Resources' strategy to serve customer demands. AGL Resources owns and operates four LNG peak-shaving facilities.
AGL Resources' core business is delivering environmentally friendly natural gas to the company's 2.3 million customers through its six utilities. With its signature service, AGL Resources is committed to excellence in customer relations.
Here is an overview of the company's six utilities:
Atlanta Gas Light | Chattanooga Gas | Elizabethtown Gas | Elkton Gas | Florida City Gas | Virginia Natural Gas
Atlanta Gas Light
Founded: 1856
Headquarters: Atlanta
President: Suzanne Sitherwood
Number of Customers: 1.55 million
Number of Communities Served: 237 throughout the state of Georgia
Web Address: http://www.atlantagaslight.com
Atlanta Gas Light is the largest natural gas distributor in the Southeast. It provides delivery service to approximately 1.55 million residential, commercial and industrial customers in Georgia.
The natural gas market in Georgia is deregulated. Natural gas marketers compete to provide natural gas services to customers, creating a competitive market for the best in pricing and service plans. The marketers arrange the buying and selling of natural gas to residential and commercial customers, execute billing and oversee related customer service needs.
Atlanta Gas Light's role in Georgia's deregulated environment includes:
Distributing natural gas for the marketers
Maintaining the gas system infrastructure, including responding to gas leaks
Performing meter reading for the marketers
Ensuring the safe, reliable delivery of natural gas to Georgia customers
Offering online customer information about natural gas and gas-fueled products
Atlanta Gas Light is also very active in our communities, donating to energy assistance programs, contributing to nonprofit agencies, and supporting our employees' continuing volunteer efforts throughout the state.
AGL Resources retail energy operations segment brings together the expertise of a national supplier with the local knowledge and understanding of a regional provider. Value-minded customers rely on retail operations for dependable, competitively priced natural gas service.
Southstar Energy Services
Year Established: 1998
Headquarters: Atlanta
President, SouthStar Energy Services LLC: Michael A. Braswell
Web Address: http://www.southstarenergy.com
Through our partnership in SouthStar Energy Services LLC, a multistate full-service provider of natural gas supply, transportation and related services, we serve more than half a million residential, small business, large commercial, and industrial customers in several states. AGL Resources holds an 85-percent owner stake in the South Star joint venture.
Sequent Energy Management is the company's Houston-based subsidiary primarily involved in asset optimization and energy marketing and trading.
Sequent Energy Management provides customers throughout North America smart and proven ways to optimize energy programs and increase cost effectiveness from wellhead to burner-tip. Sequent offers the ideal solution for large energy users looking to outsource their asset management activities.
Sequent serves the needs of utilities, marketers, retail aggregators municipalities and and large industrial customers in the United States, Sequent focuses primarily on asset management and the wholesale marketing, trading, storage and transportation of natural gas.
Sequent currently is ranked by Platts Gas Daily magazine as the 15th-largest wholesale gas marketer in North America.
Compass Energy Services
In 2007, AGL Resources acquired Compass Energy Services, Inc., a Richmond-based commercial and industrial energy services company. Compass Energy Services' mission is to provide value-added energy commodity supplies and energy procurement consulting services to commercial adn industrial customers by utilizing superior industry expertise and outstanding customer service
We know energy … we provide solutions” summarizes our promise to our clients. It’s the legacy of a business whose roots can be traced back to the 1850s.
The AGL Energy Services program offers an array of demand-side and supply-side solutions that enable our clients to optimize their use of utilities such as natural gas, electricity, water and sewer -- and that pay for themselves over time.
Here are a few ways that the AGL Energy Services program can help you reach your energy and environmental goals:
Alternative and Renewable Energy
The AGL Energy Services program has the experience and resources to provide turnkey solutions that allow clients to implement and enhance energy-producing assets using a broad range of fuels including solar, bio-mass, landfill gas, and combined heat and power (CHP).
Design/Build Construction
The AGL Energy Services program provides clients with turnkey design/build services that incorporate the expertise of mechanical, lighting, water conservation, sustainability, engineering and construction companies. With the ability to handle all aspects of a project from concept to completion, the AGL Energy Services program applies the appropriate resources to fulfill our clients’ project requirements in a cost-effective way.
Environmentally Friendly and Energy-Efficient Design
The AGL Energy Services program is committed to sustainability, and each of our projects is designed to incorporate the most energy-efficient and environmentally friendly design possible. In addition, we analyze the life-cycle cost of each technology option to ensure that our clients receive a solution that optimizes financial savings as well as energy use.
Financing
As a program of AGL Resources, AGL Energy Services is positioned to facilitate project funding arrangements with equity, debt and other financial partners.
Operations and Maintenance
Solutions designed and installed by the AGL Energy Solutions program often reap immediate energy and cost savings for our clients. In the longer term, the installation of energy-efficient equipment also offers clients quantifiable O&M savings.
Performance Contracting
The AGL Energy Services program offers performance contracting to those clients who are looking for equipment retrofit solutions that offer cost savings that pay for the project during the life of the contract and create excess savings that can be applied to future needs.
Supplier Diversity Program
The AGL Resources Supplier Diversity program develops relationships with and increases opportunities for diverse suppliers that provide quality, competitive prices and services. We believe supplier diversity makes good business sense.
Our supplier diversity policy is to help diverse suppliers develop their businesses in order to maximize their opportunities to do business with us. All AGL Resources buyers are encouraged to consider direct contracts and to recommend that our prime suppliers provide subcontracting opportunities to diverse suppliers.
John W. Somerhalder II
Chairman, President and
Chief Executive Officer
Second Tier Program
AGL Resources strongly encourages its prime suppliers to provide meaningful contracting opportunities to firms owned by minorities and women. Because we understand the value added by the development of diverse businesses, we promote supplier diversity throughout our existing supply base.
We consider second-tier supplier diversity (subcontracting) by our prime suppliers to be an important component of our Supplier Diversity Program. AGL Resources evaluates supplier diversity is its RFP decision matrix, and we ask that our prime suppliers participate in our Supplier Diversity Program (including reporting on supplier diversity efforts).
We require our prime suppliers to report their purchases with diverse suppliers via our quarterly reporting form. Primary suppliers participating in the AGL Resources second-tier program are asked to please report their quarterly spending with diverse suppliers by completing a reporting form.
Supplier Database
AGL Resources employees who make and/or influence purchasing decisions have access to a supplier database that contains contact information for businesses nationwide. This supplier database enables employees to search by product/service, company name or business classification, which helps us identify businesses to include in RFPs/RFQs/RFIs.
In order for your business to be pre-approved to compete for procurement opportunities, your company’s information must be submitted online via our registration/pre-approval form. (Please note: Providing the requested information about your company does not guarantee a contract and/or procurement opportunity.)
Supplier Connections
We are committed to developing our suppliers. Registered suppliers have access to information, purchasing employees and overall business development opportunities through in-house tradeshows, newsletters and other activities. Supplier Connections will also help suppliers develop strategic relationships with employees who make purchasing decisions at AGL Resources and with first- and second-tier suppliers.
iquefied Natural Gas
AGL Resources' LNG facilities
Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plays an important role in AGL Resources' strategy to meet the growing demand for safe, reliable natural gas in the states served by its utilities. AGL Resources owns and operates four LNG peak-shaving facilities, which supply gas at peak use times.
The largest, the Riverdale LNG plant in Riverdale, Ga., has storage capacity of 31,080,000 gallons or 2,560,000 million cubic feet (Mcf) of natural gas in its two tanks. Located south of Atlanta, the plant is supplied by two interstate pipelines for supply. It is connected to the Atlanta Gas Light (AGL) beltline pipeline system for distribution of gas to the Atlanta market. The plant is able to deliver 400,000 Mcf/day of gas during peak send-out.
The Cherokee LNG plant, located north of Atlanta in Ball Ground, Ga., has storage capacity of 25,242,957 gallons or 2,020,237 Mcf equivalent of natural gas in a single tank. The 934-acre site was designed to accommodate a second tank of equal capacity if warranted. This plant receives supply from three pipelines and can deliver an equivalent of 400,000 Mcf/day of peak send-out to AGL's Atlanta market.
AGL Resources also owns and operates an LNG plant in Macon, Ga. This plant's single tank storage capacity is 18,900,000 gallons or the equivalent of 1,501,983 Mcf. Although the plant is capable of delivering up to 150,000 Mcf/day, the pipeline system exiting the plant can accommodate a delivery of less than half that volume, of only 70,000 Mcf/day. Several options to capitalize on this plant's capabilities more effectively are under consideration.
In Tennessee, Chattanooga Gas, another AGL Resources subsidiary, receives peak day supplies from the company’s Chattanooga plant, which holds the equivalent of 1,186,035 Mcf. This facility is supplied by two pipelines and can deliver up to 90,000 Mcf/day to the Chattanooga Gas market.
AGL Resources, through Virginia Natural Gas (VNG), also owns some storage capacity — 752,174 Mcf equivalent — in the Columbia Natural Gas Company-operated Chesapeake LNG facility. This plant is located at the end of the Columbia pipeline that supplies VNG’s south system. To more fully utilize this contracted capacity, VNG constructed a LNG vaporization plant adjacent to its propane plant in 2002. This system is capable of adding up to 14,400 Mcf/day into the VNG system by trucking LNG from the Chesapeake plant to the vaporization plant.
About LNG
LNG is natural gas that has been cooled to about minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit for storage as a liquid. LNG is more compact than its gaseous equivalent with a volumetric difference of approximately 600 to 1. This difference in volume allows AGL Resources to store a large quantity of natural gas in a relatively compact storage space.
Most LNG storage facilities in the United States were constructed solely for use by local utilities. Storage facilities in utilities' service areas often hold LNG for an extended period of time to meet peak demand periods.
LNG facilities offer several advantages over alternative storage options such as depleted reservoirs, aquifers and salt caverns. Above-ground storage tanks give companies more flexibility in locating LNG facilities where they are needed.
LNG peak-shaving plants are also more economical to build than new, larger and longer pipelines. LNG plant construction costs average $54/Dth (dekatherm); expanding a pipeline cost much more, an average of $232/Dth.
LNG facilities are often constructed with a higher degree of "deliverability" (the amount of gas the facility can send out under peak conditions relative to inventory) than traditional underground storage facilities. LNG accounts for only a small portion of working gas in storage, but it often represents a significant part of a company's supply portfolio for peak days.
LNG Marine Terminals
LNG has been imported into the United States for more than three decades. Because of high natural gas prices in the 1970s, some companies anticipated large profits and constructed four U.S. LNG receiving terminals. Dreams of high profits never materialized, however, and all but one of the four were mothballed.
The Everett, Mass., LNG marine terminal remained in operation only because it was located in a market center where demand was high and the cost of bringing in conventional natural gas supplies by pipeline exceeded the cost of LNG. In 1989, the Lake Charles, La., facility was reactivated, mainly to receive spot cargoes.
As a result of high natural gas prices experienced in the winter of 2000-2001 and the growing demand for natural gas, the other two facilities — at Elba Island, Ga., and Cove Point, Md. — also have reopened.
AGL Resources owns a combined 790,000 Dth of capacity at Cove Point and is able to capitalize on its pipeline capacity out of Elba Island to move gas on an interruptible basis. While the industry has experienced periods of both high growth and prolonged downturns, recent natural gas prices have caused many analysts to predict that imported LNG may provide a much larger share of the U.S. natural gas supply.
Propane
Propane-air storage is also a common choice for utilities to meet their short-term peak demand energy needs. However, unlike LNG, propane is not pipeline quality gas. It must be blended or mixed into a flowing gas stream.
One advantage of propane-air plants is their ability to be refilled via supplies that are trucked in. A pipeline is not needed. In times of critical need and without other cost-effective options, propane-air plants can be a valuable supply option.
AGL Resources owns and operates three propane-air plants. The south plant in the Virginia Natural Gas system is capable of supplementing up to 28,800 Mcf/day equivalent into the system. This plant has storage capacity of 185,586 Mcf equivalent.
Another valuable option for the VNG system is its north plant, which has storage capacity of 160,000 Mcf equivalent and send-out capability of up to 14,400 Mcf/day.
When necessary, propane can be trucked from one plant to the other so the company can avoid purchasing additional supply when prices are high. Atlanta Gas Light’s Valdosta propane plant in Georgia is capable of storing up to 7,022 Mcf equivalent and supplementing the Valdosta distribution system with 3,600 Mcf/day.
The estimated total capacity of LNG storage facilities in the lower 48 states as of mid-2001 (excluding marine facility storage) was 86 billion cubic feet (Bcf). AGL Resources' storage capacity accounts for more than 8 Bcf or more than nine percent of that total. The 7.3 Bcf of AGL-operated storage also comprises 33 percent of the existing LNG storage in the Southeast.
In addition, AGL Resources owns two portable vaporization units that can be transported to any location in AGL's system. When coupled with tractor-trailer LNG tankers, these units can supplement the utility's pipeline system. This service is critical to avoid loss of service to customers in times of peak demand.