Amarillo's Cliffside Gas Plant for sale after Helium Stewardship Act - Amarillo Globe-News
Amarillo's Cliffside Gas Plant for sale after Helium Stewardship Act
Amarillo's Cliffside Gas Plant up for sale, including pipeline and wells
Alana Edgin
About a decade after Congress passed the Helium Stewardship Act of 2013, Amarillo's Cliffside Gas Plant and assets are beginning the sale process, according to a news release from the General Services Administration.
The sale process, which begins on Wednesday, will include the Cliffside Gas Plant at 13301 Brickplant Road. The plant, which is on 8.108 acres of leased land, includes a range of primary and support buildings.
Related: 2019 article details Amarillo's former status as 'helium capital of the world,' Lubbock balloon businesses' struggle
The sale will also include:
- Mineral rights covering about 38,000 acres of gas and 60 acres of oil resources.
- The Federal Helium system, including booster compressor, natural gas chiller skid, metering equipment, spare parts, emergency generators, storage tanks, and other machinery.
- The Helium Storage Reservoir, also known as the Bush Dome. It is a natural geologic formation located approximately 3,000 feet below the surface, and containing about 66 billion cubic feet of helium (a mix of privately and federally owned).
- 23 natural gas wells, some of which are high-pressure injection wells.
- The Federal Helium Pipeline, spanning 423.24 miles and connecting the Cliffside Field to privately owned helium refineries across North Texas, the Oklahoma Panhandle, and South Kansas. It facilitates production, transmission, storage and delivery of crude helium to refineries. Under the Bureau of Land Management's ownership, the pipeline has delivered more than 2 million cubic feet of crude helium daily.
The sale process is expected to take eight or nine months.
Interested parties can contact William.rollings@gsa.gov. Further information about the property, including bidding procedures and asset specifications, can be found at gsa.gov.
Related Knowledge Center: Liquefied natural gas
Driven by plentiful natural gas produced from shale plays, the United States began exporting liquefied natural gas in 2016 when the Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana opened and shipped its first cargo. Since then, additional capacity, or trains, have been added to Sabine Pass, and terminals have become operational in Cameron Parish, La.; Hackberry, La.; Cove Point, Md.; and Corpus Christi, Texas. The Energy Information Administration projects that U.S. LNG export capacity will reach 8.9 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) by the end of 2019, making it the third largest in the world, behind Australia and Qatar. The tariff war with China has the potential to impact some final investment decisions for additional terminals in the coming months.