Rough (facility)
Rough is a former natural gas storage facility situated off the east coast of England. In June 2017, Centrica Storage Ltd announced that gas injection and storage would cease. History. Production licences for the Rough field were given in 1964, and gas was first brought ashore to Easington gas processing terminal in 1975. In 1980 British Gas Corporation (which became British Gas plc in 1986 following privatisation) purchased the Rough field with one-third of reserves depleted, with the intention of converting the field into a gas storage facility to manage seasonal trends in the supply and demand  of gas in the UK. In 1983 British Gas Corporation made the final decision to convert Rough into a natural gas storage facility which became operational in 1985 as the largest gas storage facility built in the UK continental shelf. The break-up of British Gas plc in 1997 into BG Group and Centrica meant that BG Storage was created as a ring-fenced subsidiary of BG Group, for competition reasons. In 2001, BG Group sold BG Storage, and thus the Rough facility, to Dynegy. In 2002, Centrica bought the plant from Dynegy for £304 million during its period  of near-bankruptcy. The purchase of Rough led to the Competition Commission requesting certain undertakings being put in place due to Centrica's control of the Morecambe Bay gas fields which at the time were providing 10–15% of the UK's gas supply. In 2003 Centrica provided DECC with a set of undertakings and Centrica Storage Ltd (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Centrica plc) was formed. Centrica Storage Ltd still operates the Rough facility in accordance with the undertakings. In June 2017, Centrica announced the closure of the Rough gas storage site due to safety concerns. The rundown of the  plant will take up to four years to complete. Operation. The facility consists of a partially depleted gas field (the Rough field) in the Southern North Sea, approximately 18 miles (29 km) off the east coast of Yorkshire, together with an onshore gas processing terminal at Easington, approximately 27 miles (43 km) south-east of Hull. The Rough processing terminal forms a part of the larger Easington Gas Terminal which can inject upwards of 125 million cubic metres per day (approximately 40% of the daily UK supply). The Rough facility is operated by Centrica Storage Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary  of Centrica. Nearly 200 staff and contractors are employed within the operation, both onshore and offshore. It had a storage capacity of 3.31 billion cubic metres which was approximately 70% of the UK's gas storage capacity (approximately nine days' supply). Rough could supply 10% of the UK's peak gas demand and thus was an important part of the UK's gas infrastructure. Operational problems led to a partial shutdown in 2016, requiring increased imports during that winter. At the time of the announcement of the rundown of the facility in June 2017, Rough was the only depleted UK  offshore gas field reservoir used for gas storage and retrieval. Several projects have been proposed to use other depleted offshore fields but none have proved to be economically viable; two examples are the Baird and Deborah gas storage projects. Offshore facilities. The offshore installations and their details and functions were as follows.