US DOE says to soon release environmental report on SPR expansion

Washington (Platts)--28Mar2006

The US Energy Department Tuesday said it would soon be releasing a draft
environmental impact statement, including floodplain and wetland assessments,
on the potential sites for expansion or new development of the nation's
Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Congress in last year's energy bill required DOE to expand the emergency
crude stockpile to 1 billion barrels from its current 727 million barrel
capacity. The department is looking at boosting capacity at a number of
existing sites and developing new sites to meet that requirement. Some of the
potential sites for the reserve or for pipelines leading to and from the
reserve are located in floodplains or in wetlands, DOE noted in a Federal
Register notice.

DOE said it was looking at expanding SPR storage capacity at three of its
existing sites: West Hackberry and Bayou Choctaw in Louisiana and Big Hill in
Texas. Potential sites for new construction of SPR storage capacity are:
Chacahoula and Clovelly, Louisiana; Richton and Bruinsburg, Mississippi; and
Stratton Ridge, Texas.

"The expansion sites and the candidate construction sites all involve
potential actions in floodplains and/or wetlands," the agency said.

The selected sites also will require a petroleum pipeline or pipeline
expansion, as well as a brine pipeline or pipeline expansion, DOE said.

--Cathy Landry, cathy_landry@platts.com

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