Recently, UGI Energy Services (UGIES) partnered with Chesapeake Energy to host members of the Pennsylvania and New Jersey Public Utility Commissions for a tour of an active drilling rig, UGI Energy Services’ Manning Compressor Station, and its Manning liquified natural gas (LNG) facility featuring liquefaction and storage.
The tour covered: how the drilling process works, the materials utilized, recycling efforts, how natural gas is produced and moved from the wellhead to gathering pipelines and transmission pipelines and the important role of compression. And ultimately, the vital role of natural gas serving a multitude of end markets.
UGIES and Chesapeake Energy also highlighted their focus on employee safety, community safety, and environmental protection, including emissions controls, inspections, equipment utilized, and other safety measures such as automatic shutoffs and closing down systems.
The tour was an educational session for the Commissioners who were particularly interested in learning what measures the upstream and midstream industry sectors take to ensure that natural gas continues to flow during periods of extreme temperatures. Mother Nature provided a brief real-life example as it snowed and temperatures dropped during the tour. The latest best practices used by Pennsylvania’s natural gas producers and midstream companies were highlighted, including winterization measures.
It was an opportunity to showcase the processes and infrastructure used to extract and distribute natural gas in Pennsylvania—the nation’s second-largest natural gas producer—as well as to the Keystone State’s neighbors.
After visiting Chesapeake’s well pad, the group traveled to UGI Energy Services’ compression/liquefaction facilities in Wyoming County, specifically its Manning Compressor Station.
After gas is extracted from the wellhead, natural gas moves through a pipeline network including compressor stations, which are an essential part of the natural gas pipeline network. Compressor stations are placed within the gathering and transportation pipeline network to help maintain the pressure and flow of gas to market.
That "market” includes over half of Pennsylvania households who use natural gas as their primary home heating fuel, and the Commonwealth’s 49 underground gas storage sites that help meet regional heating demand in winter.
For UGI Energy Services, the Manning Compressor Station is one of the largest in the UGIES system and can move natural gas both north and south, into interstate pipelines that flow east and west.
Further, liquified natural gas (LNG) facilities, such as UGIES’ Manning LNG facility visited on the tour, provide gas supplies during peak times for customers during the coldest winter days when demand is the highest. LNG is crucial in supplying customers in remote locations with energy and locations without access to natural gas service.
Located in the heart of Pennsylvania’s dry gas region, UGIES’s Manning LNG facility plays a central role in insuring that natural gas is able to reach customers in our current pipeline constrained environment and during periods of cold weather.
UGI Energy Services is grateful for the commissioners' time to learn and see the latest innovations in technology and culture of safety within the natural gas industry. It was a great opportunity for UGI Energy Services and Chesapeake Energy to hear from the Commissions and learn from one another.
