During the summer, when storage operators are typically injecting natural gas into storage facilities to build up inventories before the winter months, natural gas inventories in Southern California have remained nearly flat. Underground natural gas storage wells at the Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) Aliso Canyon facility, by far the largest storage field in the region, are undergoing testing, following a leak that was detected in late October 2015 and stopped in February 2016. Approval from regulators is required before operators can begin to inject natural gas into this storage field. Aliso Canyon accounts for 86 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of SoCalGas’s total capacity of 135 Bcf. After the leak, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) ordered that Aliso Canyon inventory levels be reduced to 15 Bcf . Other SoCalGas storage fields, with a combined capacity of 49 […]