Mol, E.ON to submit plans for Hungarian gas storage by October

Hungary chose Mol Nyrt and a local unit of E.ON AG to submit construction plans to build an underground natural gas storage facility in the country by 2010, a company executive said yesterday. The Hungarian Association of Hydrocarbon Stockpiling, an industry group of oil and gas traders, picked Mol and E.ON Földgáz Storage Zrt through a first round of bidding, said Ferenc Debreceni, CEO of a company the association set up to manage the project. Mol and E.ON Földgáz will submit technical and business plans for the storage facility in a second round of bidding by early October, Debreceni said. A winner will be chosen by year's end. Hungary, which uses the most gas per capita than any other European Union country except the Netherlands, plans to add more gas storage to cope with future shortages of the fuel. Hungary was one of the countries where Russian gas supplies were cut from mid-January to early February because of a cold snap. Hungary's storage facility is scheduled to start operation by 2010 and would store about 1.2 billion cubic meters of gas. Technical planning of the facility is expected to start in the beginning of next year, Debreceni said. (Bloomberg)