Sep. 22, 2009 (Filing Services Canada) -- Tribute Resources Inc. (TRB - TSX Venture), a developer of natural gas storage assets and renewable energy projects in Ontario, announced today that it has filed an application with the Ontario Energy Board (the "OEB") to designate the Bayfield and Stanley pools in Huron County, Ontario as natural gas storage reservoirs. It is the intent of Tribute to develop the first two of the Huron County pools (the "Bayfield Pools") with estimated working storage capacity of 6 billion cubic feet ("BCF"), for possible gas injection in April 2012.
Tribute has formed the Huron Bayfield Limited Partnership ("Bayfield LP") and Bayfield Resources Inc. ("Bayfield GP") as investment vehicles for the future development of the Bayfield Pools and potential additional natural gas storage reservoirs in Huron County. Tribute currently owns a 100% interest in both entities. Tribute plans to transfer the natural gas storage and petroleum and natural gas rights for the Bayfield Pools to the Bayfield LP in exchange for units in the Bayfield LP. The funds required to develop the pools will then be raised through a sale of partnership units in the Bayfield LP to third parties. Tribute has sufficient working capital on hand to fund the designation and initial engineering of the Bayfield Pools. However, the construction of storage pools is very capital intensive and additional funding will be required for construction of wells, pipeline, and compression facilities.
All further development of the Bayfield Pools will be completed by the Bayfield LP and Tribute will jointly apply to the OEB with the Bayfield LP for designation of the Bayfield Pools, the right to inject and withdraw natural gas from the reservoirs, and permission to drill injection and observation wells into the pools.
To facilitate the marketing of natural gas from the potential natural gas storage reservoirs requires the construction of a 70 kilometer pipeline that would connect the pools to the Dawn Trafalgar system at Lobo near London, Ontario. An application is being filed in the name of Bayfield Pipeline Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of Tribute, for a leave to construct the required 16" pipeline. A third party environmental consulting firm has completed an environmental assessment of the pipeline route and has made recommendations on a preferred route for the project.
Tribute remains committed to its core strategy of building and holding natural gas storage in Ontario. This storage development is the second project developed by Tribute in Huron County. Tribute, in partnership with Union Gas, completed its first storage development, the Tipperary pool, in 2008.
