eCORP is a multi-faceted energy company that has become a significant player in the development and operation of natural gas based infrastructure facilities.
eCORP is a Houston, Texas, based multifaceted energy company which, through its subsidiaries, affiliates and related entities, is engaged in the development and operation of natural gas storage facilities, natural gas pipelines, electric power plants, and other energy related facilities.
eCORP and its principals and affiliates have been involved in the development of several significant projects, including the following: 1) Bammel Field, Houston, Texas, 2) Rotherwood Storage Facility, Houston, Texas, 3) Katy Storage Project and Market Center, Houston, Texas, 4) Stuart Natural Gas Storage Facility, Southeast Oklahoma. 5) Stagecoach Natural Gas Storage Facility, Tioga County New York, and 6) Junction Natural Gas Storage Facility, Southwest Pennsylvania (JCTstorage.com).
Several of the principals of eCORP were involved in the design and construction of the Stuart Natural Gas Storage Facility in Oklahoma. While designing and constructing the Stuart Storage Facility, a proprietary technology known as Salternatives Technology was developed. This technology combined horizontal drilling techniques, unique reservoir modeling capabilities and completion methods to develop high-performance, low-cost storage facilities. Today, Salternatives Technology-based projects represent a new class of natural gas storage assets.
One of the important benefits of Salternatives Technology (which today is more appropriately classified as proprietary knowledge and is more widely emulated in other projects) is that it enables the Company to develop natural gas storage facilities in areas that were previously deemed unsuitable due to the large number of vertical wells required to fully develop a depleted reservoir and achieve high performance in low quality reservoir rock (low porosity and permeability). Now, depleted reservoirs that have limited deliverability capabilities if they are developed using traditional development techniques, but are located in close proximity to large gas consuming markets or near other sources of gas, can be developed into high performance gas storage facilities (i.e., facilities having high rates of injection and withdrawal associated with multi-cycling capability). An example of the use of this technology is in the Appalachian Basin region of the Northeast United States, where the reservoir rock is typically lower in porosity and permeability. Through the use of its know-how, high performance gas storage facilities such as the Stagecoach Natural Gas Storage Facility located in Tioga County, New York, can be developed in the Northeast United States using depleted gas reservoirs that would never have been developed in the past.
This capability is becoming more important as demand for natural gas increases. Because of its environmentally friendly attributes, natural gas has become the fuel of choice for new power plants, especially highly flexible gas fired peaking plants that burn natural gas as a fuel in highly efficient gas turbines. High deliverability natural gas storage facilities that are located in close proximity to these new power generating facilities can provide the following benefits:
Reliable supply of natural gas when deliverability from long haul pipelines is restricted
Flexible fuel supply management capabilities providing optimum economic benefits.
Fully dispatchable electric service
Avoidance of costly fuel gas conditioning and compression equipment if gas storage facility is sole supplier of gas to power generation facility
eCORP's business strategy is to develop facilities similar to the Stagecoach Facility in strategic locations throughout the United States and Canada where natural gas supply security is essential to the economy of the area and where energy infrastructure development is required to meet growing energy demand. Other projects are in early stages of research and development in various locations throughout the United States and Canada.