NGS Energy LP and El Paso Corp. signed an agreement with NGS Energy LP, which provides NGS with an exclusive due diligence period and the right to acquire El Paso’s Pinal County, Arizona natural gas storage asset in the Picacho basin. The asset is estimated to hold the potential for a 20 billion cubic feet storage facility.

The agreement includes all acreage, well, geological and technical data and rights related to the project, which includes a nine-mile header system that can connect to the Transwestern and El Paso Natural Gas pipelines, as well as various gas-fired plants.

"The growth in the Arizona market has not received the appropriate response from the natural gas storage industry," said NGS Energy president Laura Luce. "The Picacho salt basin will be developed into a highly cyclable gas storage asset that could provide Arizona customers with the flexibility it currently needs and will need with continued growth.”

Filings with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) are expected to take place in the summer of 2012.