Gulf South and Boardwalk have begun to curb emissions at the Petal facility, cutting them in 2020 by nearly 50 percent of what they were in 2019, a year when Petal’s emissions were more than five times larger than any other underground gas storage facility in the country. In 2020, three of the seven highest emitting gas storage facilities in the country were owned by Boardwalk and its subsidiaries. The Petal facility has held onto the dubious distinction of being the largest such methane emitter for each of the last five years, according to data the companies have submitted to the EPA. The emissions were three-and-a-half times higher than the methane released that year from any other U.S. In 2020, Petal emitted 4,947 metric tons of methane, according to reports submitted by the facility’s owner, Gulf South Pipeline, and its parent company, Boardwalk Pipeline Partners, to the U.S. However, its emissions of methane, the primary component of natural gas, are far and away the highest of all such facilities in the nation. The Petal storage plant is relatively small as gas storage facilities go: It ranks as the 41 st largest underground gas storage facility in the country. Today, eight artificial caverns carved into the Petal Dome store up to 30 billion cubic feet of natural gas, fuel that provides a critical backstop for the region’s fluctuating energy needs. Underneath the Petal plant lies a vast dome of salt nearly two miles in diameter that formed millions of years ago, during the Mesozoic Era, when other layers of rock pushed down on the surrounding salt formation until it was squeezed upwards into a bulging dome.Ī gas company began hollowing out the Petal Dome, creating the nation’s first salt cavity specifically designed for natural gas storage in 1951. Petal is one of hundreds of underground natural gas storage facilities across the United States, where operators pump gas into underground salt formations, aquifers or depleted oil and gas reservoirs, storing the gas until it is needed. In the process, the Petal plant releases half a ton of a potent greenhouse gas into the atmosphere every hour-more than any other gas storage facility in the country.
It’s a warren of pipes, wellheads and metal buildings where noisy compressors pump gas underground and then suck it back up to the surface again. PETAL, Miss.-The Petal Gas Storage Station lies halfway between the winding banks of the Leaf River and the International Checker Hall of Fame.
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