Oil storage facility on slow track

The Clarion-Ledger, 12/1/8

As President-elect Barack Obama prepares to name an energy secretary who supports his policies, the current administration is pushing ahead with plans to extend the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in Mississippi.

The U.S. Department of Energy announced plans in 2006 to acquire the Richton salt dome to build an underground facility that would hold 160 million barrels of oil in 16 salt caverns.

The project’s details still are being worked out, and it’s unknown what effect, if any, the new administration will have on the plans for the salt dome.

DOE officials would not comment directly on the project’s future in an Obama administration.