Questar limits gas at storage facility

Questar Corp., a Salt Lake-based natural-gas producer and storage provider in the West, limited the amount of gas shippers can add to the Clay Basin storage site in Utah because of mechanical problems.

During planned maintenance that ended Monday, Questar found some suction and discharge valves were not sealing properly, resulting in a 20 percent reduction of service, said Brad Markus, with Questar Pipeline Co.'s marketing group in Salt Lake City.

"With any luck, we can repair them and not replace them," Markus said in a phone interview Tuesday. "They are trying to track down parts now."

The repairs will cut injections into the storage reservoir to 265 million cubic feet to 290 million cubic feet a day, down from an average capacity of 350 million cubic feet a day, Markus said. The repairs will take four to six weeks to complete, Questar said in a Web site posting Monday.

The storage site, which is located 140 miles northeast of Salt Lake City on the borders with Colorado and Wyoming, had been shut entirely to withdrawals and additions from April 4 to Monday for tests designed to gauge how accurately the reservoir receives and releases supplies, Markus said.

Questar's Northwest and Questar lines, which link to Clay Basin, continue to operate normally. Questar's 2,000-mile-long namesake pipeline in Utah, Wyoming and Colorado can transport 1.5 billion cubic feet of gas a day.

The Clay Basin storage reservoir holds about 117.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas, according to Questar's Web site.

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