Electric generating plantEIA plant no. 50728

Exxonmobil Garden City Gas Plant

Type
Natural Gas Steam Turbine
Status
Retired November 2002
Nameplate (when running)
2.7 MW
Units
5
In service since
1964–1997
Operator
Exxon Mobil Production Co
Location
Centerville, St Mary County, Louisiana

Exxonmobil Garden City Gas Plant is retired. EIA's monthly generator inventory (EIA-860M, August 2026) lists every generator at this natural gas plant as retired; the last one retired in November 2002. It is not counted among Louisiana's operating plants or in any ranking on this site.

The figures below describe the plant when it ran: equipment from EIA Form 860 (2024).

The 2.7 MW is nameplate capacity: the most this plant's generators are rated to produce, not what it actually generates. EPA eGRID reports no positive net generation for it this year.

How it works

A steam plant burning natural gas

natural gas insteamwater returns1boiler burns natural gas2steam spins turbine3generator4cooling condenses steam
  1. A boiler burns natural gas to turn water into high-pressure steam.
  2. The steam pushes through a turbine, spinning it thousands of times a minute.
  3. The turbine's shaft turns a generator, which sends power to the grid.
  4. Spent steam is cooled back into water — by a cooling tower, a lake or a river — and pumped back to the boiler.

Why the numbers look like this: a boiler and turbine this size take hours to bring up from cold, so steam plants were built to run steadily for long stretches. A steam plant with a low capacity factor is usually being held in reserve, or run only through the hottest and coldest weeks.

This plant highlighted in navy-ringed pin; other generators within 25 miles shown as fuel-colored dots.

Natural GasBiomass

Location

AddressHwy 317 S 1/2 Mile, Hwy 90,
CityCenterville
CountySt Mary County
StateLouisiana
ZIP70522
Coordinates29.70000, -91.55000
OperatorExxon Mobil Production Co

Generators (5)

IDTechnologyFuelNameplate capacityStatusOnline
4Natural Gas Fired Combustion TurbineNatural Gas0.8 MWRetired1968
1Natural Gas Steam TurbineNatural Gas0.6 MWRetired1997
2Natural Gas Steam TurbineNatural Gas0.6 MWRetired1964
3Natural Gas Steam TurbineNatural Gas0.6 MWRetired1964
5Natural Gas Internal Combustion EngineNatural Gas0.1 MWRetired1968

Grid context

NERC RegionSERC

About Natural Gas plants

Natural gas plants are the workhorse of the modern grid. Combined-cycle units achieve very high efficiency and can ramp up and down quickly to balance variable renewables. They emit roughly half the CO₂ per MWh of coal and far less of other pollutants, but they still release upstream methane during fuel extraction.

Other plants in St Mary County

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