General information
The former Haidach natural gas reservoir – now used as a natural gas storage facility
Since 2011, the underground gas storage facility in Haidach has been able to hold about 2.9 billion cubic meters of natural gas. 55% of the total storage capacities are commercialised by SEFE Storage.
One of Central Europe´s largest natural gas storage facilities is located in Haidach, about 30 kilometres to the northeast of the city of Salzburg. The project became fully operational in 2007. The storage facility was planned and built by RAG, and is now technically operated by the company. Since commissioning the final expansion phase in May 2011, the storage volume has doubled.
The Haidach natural gas reservoir was discovered as a pore reservoir in 1997 at a depth of 1,600 metres. Its total volume of 4.3 billion cubic metres made the Haidach field Austria’s largest natural gas discovery since 1982. Since production started in 1998, the field has produced over 2.9 billion cubic metres of natural gas for the Austrian market. Building work for the storage facility commenced in September 2005.
The Haidach natural gas storage facility is connected to the high-pressure grid in Germany via the German-Austrian hub at Burghausen/Haiming. This makes the Haidach storage facility part of the European gas market. The Haidach storage facility is currently connected to the Trading Hub Europe (THE) market area via the network operators bayernets GmbH (USP Haidach) and Open Grid Europe GmbH (Haiming 3-Haidach storage facility). Furthermore, via the booking of the short-distance transport at bayernets between the USP Haidach and Überackern 2, there is an additional connection of the storage facility Haidach to the control area East in Austria, whereby the corresponding regulations under REGENT have to be considered.
