Texaco Inc. has reorganized several U.S. subsidiaries into an integrated gas supply, processing, transportation, and storage operation.
The company bills its Gulf Coast Star Center (GCSC) as the largest one-stop gas marketplace created since the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in November 1993 implemented Order 636, unbundling traditional services of U.S. interstate gas pipelines. GCSC links Texaco's network of gas gathering, transmission, and distribution pipelines, gas processing plants, and gas storage facilities in Louisiana and Texas.
A new Texaco customer service group, StarSource, is using GCSC facilities to provide seamless gas services to customers from the U.S. Gulf Coast to the Midwest, South Atlantic, and Northeast. StarSource allows customers to secure multiple gas services through a single contact, including spot gas sales, long term sales commitments, delivery rate flexibility, multiple pipeline options, transportation and storage capacity assignments and releases, nominations and sourcing changes, and price risk management.
Many StarSource gas delivery and risk management services available through GCSC will involve Henry Hub in Southwest Louisiana, the delivery point of the New York Mercantile Exchange gas futures contracts.
LARGEST GAS SYSTEM
Texaco Natural Gas Pres. Graham H. Batcheler said GCSC will set a new standard in the U.S. for gas services and is the most significant attempt by a U.S. energy company to bring gas buyers and sellers together.
In addition to the largest producer owned pipeline and storage system in the U.S., "with Texaco's 1.8 bcfd of gas production, we are able to provide unparalleled supply, reliability, and services to our gas customers," Batcheler said.
GCSC consists of Texaco's Bridgeline pipeline system in Louisiana, Texaco gas storage and marketing operations along the Gulf Coast, and several large gas processing plants, including the Henry Hub plant. The combined physical assets of Texaco units assigned to the GCSC network include.
- More than 1,100 miles of transmission lines and 400 miles of gathering lines.
- Connections with more than 50 interstate and intrastate pipelines that deliver gas to customers on the Gulf Coast and the eastern half of the U.S.
- Working gas storage capacity of 3.0 bcf and 350 MMcfd of withdrawal capacity at the Sorrento, La., salt cavern gas storage site.
- Combined processing plant capacity of 2.4 bcfd.
Unbundling of interstate gas pipeline services under Order 636 prompted Texaco to create GCSC. FERC late last year helped set the stage for GCSC when it approved Texaco's request to be allowed to provide open access transportation and storage services on the Bridgeline Gas Distribution Co. system.
Other Texaco subsidiaries with assets dedicated to GCSC include Sabine Pipe Line Co., Riverway Pipeline Co., Neches Gas Distribution Co., and Texaco Gas Marketing Inc.
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